A man's insight gives him patience, and his virtue is to overlook an offense. Sermons
I. THE WORTH OF INTELLIGENCE. 1. It is self-conservative (ver. 8). We all love our own soul or life in any healthy state of body and mind. We all want to live as long as possible. It is natural to desire to live again beyond the grave. Then let us understand that there is no way to these ends except that of intelligence, in the highest and in every sense. 2. It is the source of happiness. (Ver. 8.) The truth is very general and abstract, like the truth of the whole of these proverbs. It does not amount to this - that good sense will in every case procure happiness, but that there is no true happiness without it. II. SOME MAXIMS OF INTELLIGENCE. 1. The sorrow that falsehood brings. (Ver. 9.) It is certain. Many a lie is not immediately found out in the ordinary sense of these words; but it is always found in the man's mind. It vitiates the intelligence, undermines the moral strength. The rest must follow in its time - somewhere, somehow. 2. Vanity stands in its own light. (Ver. 10.) Those who have given way to over weening self-esteem and arrogance of temper - like Rehoboam, or like Alexander the Great, or Napoleon - become only the more conceited and presumptuous in success. The opposite of vanity is not grovelling self-disparagement, but the sense which teaches us to know our place. 3. The prudence of toleration and of conciliation. (Vers. 11, 12.) Socrates was a noble example of these virtues in the heathen world. We who have "learned Christ" should not at least fall behind him. To bear our wrongs with patience is the lower degree of this virtue. Positively to "overcome evil with good" stands higher. Highest of all is the Divine art to turn persecutors into friends (1 Peter 2:19; Matthew 5:44, sqq.). 4. The arcana of domestic life. (Vers. 13, 14.) (1) The foolish son. "Many are the miseries of a man's life, but none like that which cometh from him who should be the stay of his life." "Write this man childless" would have been a boon in comparison. (2) The tiresome spouse. Wearing the heart that is firm as stone by her continual contentions. (3) The kind and good wife. No gift so clearly shows the tender providence of God. 5. The inevitable fate of idleness. (Ver. 15.) (1) It produces a lethargy in the soul. (Ch. 6:9, 10.) The faculties that are not used become benumbed and effete. (2) Thus it leads to want. Although these are general maxims of a highly abstract character, still how true on the whole - if not without exception - they are to life! "He that will not work, neither let him eat." 6. The wisdom of attention to God's commands. (Ver. 16.) (1) To every man his soul is dear; i.e. his life is sweet. (2) The great secret, in the lower sense of self-preservation, in the higher of salvation, is obedience to law. (3) Inattention is the chief source of calamity. In the lower relation it is so. The careless crossing of the road, the unsteady foot on the mountain-side seems to be punished instantly and terribly. And this is the type of the truth in higher aspects. 7. The reward of pity and benevolence. (Ver. 17.) Sir Thomas More used to say there was more rhetoric in this sentence than in a whole library. God looks upon the poor as his own, and satisfies the debts they cannot pay. In spending upon the poor the good man serves God in his designs with reference to men. - J.
The discretion of a man deferreth his anger. If any vice is often reproved in the Word of God, you may be assured it springs prolific in the life of man. In this book of morals anger is a frequently recurring theme. Anger cannot be cast wholly out of man in the present state. On some occasions we do well to be angry. But the only legitimate anger is a holy emotion directed against an unholy thing. Sin, and not our neighbour, must be its object; zeal for righteousness, and not our own pride, must be its distinguishing character. Although anger be not in its own nature and in all cases sinful, the best practical rule of life is to repress it, as if it were. As usual in these laws of God's kingdom, suffering springs from the sin, as the plant from the seed. The man of great wrath will suffer, although no human tribunal take cognisance of his case. A man of great wrath is a man of little happiness. The two main elements of happiness are wanting; for he is seldom at peace with his neighbour or himself. There is an ingredient in the retribution still more immediate and direct. The emotion of anger in the mind instantly and violently affects the body in the most vital parts of its organisation. When the spirit in man is agitated by anger it sets the life-blood flowing too fast for the safety of its tender channels. The best practical specific for the treatment of anger against persons is to defer it. Its nature presses for instant vengeance, and the appetite should be starved. "To pass over a transgression" is a man's "glory." "Looking unto Jesus" is, after all, the grand specific for anger in both its aspects, as a sin and as a suffering. Its dangerous and tormenting fire, when it is kindled in a human breast, may be extinguished best by letting in upon it the love wherewith He loved us.(W. Arnot, D. D.) (Hugh Stowell Brown.) Scientific Illustrations. If you will always be ready to go off like a loaded gun even by an accident, depend on it you will get into difficulty.(Scientific Illustrations.) Homilist. Anger is an affection inherent in our nature. It is, therefore, not wrong in itself; it is wrong only when it is directed to wrong objects, or to right objects in a wrong degree of amount and duration. Anger in itself is as holy a passion as love. Indeed, in its legitimate form it is but a development of love. Love indignant with that which is opposed to the cause of right and happiness. Albeit, like every affection of our nature, it is often sadly perverted, it not unfrequently becomes malignant and furious.I. CONTROLLED. "The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression." The wise man is liable to the passion, and circumstances in his life occur to evoke it. Instead of acting under its impulse, he waits until its fires cool. It is said of Julius Caesar that when provoked he used to repeat the whole Roman alphabet before he suffered himself to speak; and once said to his servant, "I would beat thee but I am angry." It is noble to see a man holding a calm mastery over the billows of his own passions, bidding them to go so far and no farther. He who governs himself is a true king. We have anger here — II. UNCONTROLLED. The text suggests two remarks in relation to uncontrolled anger. 1. It is sometimes terrible. "The king's wrath is as the roaring of a lion." It is a lamentable fact that kings have shown less command over their evil tempers than have the ordinary run of mankind. Their temper, it is implied, affects the nation. Their anger terrifies the people like the "roar of a lion"; their favour is as refreshing and blessed as the "dew upon the grass." 2. It is always self-injurious. "A man of great wrath shall suffer punishment; for if thou deliver him, yet thou must do it again." Violent passions ever inflict their own punishment upon their unhappy subjects. They injure the body. It sets the blood flowing too quickly for its narrow channels. But it injures the soul in a variety of ways. Well does Pope say, "To be angry is to revenge others' faults upon ourselves." Anger is misery. Dr. Arnold, when at Laleham, once lost all patience with a dull scholar, when the pupil looked up in his face, and said, "Why do you speak angrily, sir? Indeed I am doing the best I can." Years after he used to tell the story to his children, and say, "I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life. That look and that speech I have never forgotten." (Homilist.) People Isaiah, SolomonPlaces JerusalemTopics Anger, Deferred, Deferreth, Discretion, Gives, Glory, Makes, Maketh, Man's, Offense, Overlook, Overlooking, Pass, Patience, Sense, Slow, Transgression, Wisdom, Wrath, WrongdoingOutline 1. Life and ConductDictionary of Bible Themes Proverbs 19:11 5929 resentment, against people Library How the Slothful and the Hasty are to be Admonished. (Admonition 16.) Differently to be admonished are the slothful and the hasty. For the former are to be persuaded not to lose, by putting it off, the good they have to do; but the latter are to be admonished lest, while they forestall the time of good deeds by inconsiderate haste, they change their meritorious character. To the slothful therefore it is to be intimated, that often, when we will not do at the right time what we can, before long, when we will, we cannot. For the very indolence of … Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great How the Impatient and the Patient are to be Admonished. Second Journey through Galilee - the Healing of the Leper. The Kingdom of God Conceived as the Inheritance of the Poor. "Boast not Thyself of to Morrow, for Thou Knowest not what a Day May Bring Forth. " The Wrath of God The Unity of God Man's Misery by the Fall Covenanting According to the Purposes of God. The Ninth Commandment The Knowledge of God Christian Meekness The Third Commandment Proverbs Links Proverbs 19:11 NIVProverbs 19:11 NLT Proverbs 19:11 ESV Proverbs 19:11 NASB Proverbs 19:11 KJV Proverbs 19:11 Bible Apps Proverbs 19:11 Parallel Proverbs 19:11 Biblia Paralela Proverbs 19:11 Chinese Bible Proverbs 19:11 French Bible Proverbs 19:11 German Bible Proverbs 19:11 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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