Judgments on transgressors
I. THE VIOLENT MAN. (Proverbs 28:17.) His doom, here as elsewhere, is viewed as sudden; he hastes to Hades—lives not out half his days. The truth is general, reflecting the intuition of the moral order. And in accordance with that order it is that pity will be turned away from him that shows no pity. This is no argument for capital punishment, but it is an argument for such a treatment of criminals as will best deter from crime.
II. THE INSECURITY OF EVIL WAYS. (Proverbs 28:18.) Integrity is alone safe; and in one or other of his crooked ways the sinner will ultimately fall. The dangerous feat is tried once too often. Our interest is attracted to "the dangerous edge of things," and we are astonished that men can stand upon it so often without falling. We do not see the result of the last and fatal attempt; or, seeing it, we do not surmise the previous successful attempts to defy the law of things. Scripture is right; but we do not know enough of events absolutely to verify its truths.
III. POVERTY AS A JUDGMENT. (Proverbs 28:19.) Here, again, we have a general truth—an abstract from the great broad field of life's facts. On the whole, there is no secret of abundance but industry; nor of poverty but idleness and indulgence in pleasure and amusement as a pursuit. Repose and pleasure are the illusions from which the stern voice of God, speaking through daily experience, is ever rousing us. Hardly any disease of body or of mind, any social evil, is there which may not be traced to self-indulgence and inertia.
IV. HASTE TO BE RICH. (Proverbs 28:20.) This temper is contrasted with that of the faithful man. There is a different scale of value in the two cases. The good man values things by the moral standard, the covetous man only by the standard of gold. The true way of looking at wealth is as an available means to all ends of health, wisdom, benevolence. These alone are rational ends; but they may be lost sight of in the passionate pursuit of the means. It was a thought deeply impressed on the ancient world that over-eagerness for riches must involve dishonesty. "No one quickly grows rich, being at the same time a just man," says Menander. "For he who desires to become rich desires to become rich quickly. But what reverence for the laws? what fear or shame is there ever in the covetous man who hastes to be rich?" says Juvenal. To lessen our desires rather than to increase our means is the true wisdom of life—to study to give account of our little rather than to make our little more.
V. RESPECT OF PERSONS IN JUDGMENT. (Proverbs 28:21, Proverbs 28:22.) The vice springs from some mean source—from fear, covetousness, or obsequiousness. Cato used to say of Caelius the tribune, that he might be hired for a piece of bread to speak or hold his peace. To prefer interest to the truth, this is the fiery temptation in one form or other of us all. And the keeping back of a part of the truth may be as injurious to others as the utterance of direct falsehood. Any meanness harboured in the soul exposes to constant danger. Timidity may fall into worse sins than those it seeks to avoid. And in other ways extremes meet. While the haster to be rich casts an evil, envious eye on the property of others, he is blind to the menace of poverty from behind. In any case, poverty of soul follows from the constant drain of thought and energy towards things that "perish in the using." How much need have all to beware of those passions which are the "thorns" that spring up and choke the good word of God in the heart!—J.