outlines and suggestive comments.
A partnership life is becoming more and more common and necessary in our commercial England. Great undertakings can only be carried out by companies. Modern legislation has greatly encouraged these combinations, by limiting the monetary liability of its members. Hence, joint-stock companies are multitudinous and multiplying. Such companies are often, perhaps generally, projected and managed by selfish, needy, and unprincipled speculators; and honest men are often tempted by the glowing promises of their lying programmes to become their adherents, and they soon find themselves in the unfortunate position referred to in the text.—Dr. David Thomas.
The receiver and resetter is at least as guilty as the thief. I say at least; for in one obvious respect he is worse. His is a general trade, which gives encouragement to many thieves, by holding out to them the means of disposing of their stolen property and evading the law. He is thus, in fact, a partaker in the guilt of all. One thief cannot set up and maintain a resetter; but one resetter may keep at their nefarious trade many thieves.—Wardlaw.
There is a warning under the eighth commandment. Do we realise the same solemnity of obligation as under the first? Many professors attach a degree of secularity to a detailed application of the duties of the second table. But both stand on the same authority. The transgressions of both are registered in the same book. The place in the Decalogue cannot be of moment, if it be but there with the imprimatur—“I am the Lord thy God.”—Bridges.
It is the cursed policy of Satan, that he strives to join men in wickedness. In drunkenness there must be a good fellow; in wantonness there must be a corrival; in bloody duels there must be a second; in theft there must be a partner, yoking men together to draw upon themselves the heavy burden of God’s displeasure. . . . Wherefore, although it may be a love unto the things stolen, or else a love unto the stealer, which maketh others to join with him, certainly he showeth little love to God’s law, certainly he proveth great hatred, which he has to his own soul. For while he joineth with another in stealing some worldly goods, he joineth with Satan in stealing his own soul from himself. And whatsoever fear he may have of some curse which the other hath laid upon him, if that he doth reveal it, he hath much more cause to feel the curse of God’s wrath, if he doth conceal it. He hath but heard the one, he shall feel the other.—Jermin.
main homiletics of verses 25 and 26.
Safety from a Snare.
I. Men fear and hope too much from their fellow men. This fear and this hope are very active agents in this world, influencing men often to abstain from what they know to be right, and inducing them to do deeds of evil. Good men have often staggered and sometimes fallen before this fear and have been misled by this false hope, and both the hope and the fear are intensified when the object of them belongs to the ranks of the conventionally great—when the man whom they desire to propitiate is a “ruler” among his fellows. Such a man sometimes has the power to injure those who displease him, and has also much that he can bestow upon those who seek his favour; but the weight of his displeasure and the worth of his gifts are generally estimated far too highly by his inferiors in rank, and when this is the case they are snares which lead to sin.
II. Trust in God is the only escape from the fear that will mislead, and the hope that will disappoint. The many and the great contrasts, not only between the favour of God and the favour of man, but between all that is connected with the seeking and the bestowal, will lead every wise man to forsake the pursuit of the less for the greater. 1. The favour of an earthly ruler is often obtained only by the exercise of great skill on the part of the seeker. When the woman of Tekoa desired to obtain from David the forgiveness of Absalom, what ingenuity on her part was necessary in order to gain the monarch’s ear and goodwill. She had to study how to put the case before him in the best light, and to enact a little drama before his eyes in order to enlist his attention and soften his heart. And yet she was pleading with a tender-hearted father for his own son. How different it is when we plead for the mercy of God either for ourselves or others. The simplest statement of the case is sufficient; no schemes or plans of any kind are necessary to win the ear of Him who is always waiting to be gracious. 2. Success with an earthly ruler is often unconnected with the merit or demerit of the pleader. It often happens that the most worthless characters obtain the greatest favours, even if the ruler himself be a fairly impartial man, because they have more friends at court than a deserving man. In the case just mentioned, Absalom, a thoroughly bad man, was able to command the services of a person who was probably more fitted to gain the desired end than any person in the kingdom. If there had been a banished subject who really merited a free pardon from the king, he would probably not have been able to command the services of so successful a pleader as the woman of Tekoa. But the case is altogether different with Him who doth not “judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears” (Isa. xi. 3). The “judgment which cometh from the Lord” is founded on the strictest impartiality, and depends upon nothing but the character and needs of the suitor. If we add to these drawbacks the uncertain good which may be contained in the “favour of a ruler” even after it is obtained, we may well wonder that it is as true now as in Solomon’s days that the “many” seek it, and only the few trust their earthly and their spiritual interests with their God. How many of the few who are not disappointed of the favour of great men are disappointed in it, and find it a poor and unsatisfying portion after all; but the testimony of all those who seek the higher good is “In Thy favour is life, and Thy lovingkindness is better than life” (Psa. xxx. 5; Psa. lxiii. 3).
outlines and suggestive comments.