And then there is another proverb, which Plato so loved to quote against the sophists, the men who flattered and corrupted the nobler youth of Athens, promising to impart to them easy short cuts to the attainment of wisdom and knowledge and philosophy; and this, without demanding the exercise of any labour or patience or self-denial on their parts. But with the proverb, Good things are hard, [190] he continually rebuked their empty pretensions; with this he made at least suspicious their promises; and this proverb, true in the sense wherein Plato used it, and that sense was earnest and serious enough, yet surely reappears, glorified and transfigured, but recognisable still, in the Saviour’s words: “The kingdom of heaven is taken by violence, and the violent take it by force.” [191]
Witnesses for the truth.
This method of looking in proverbs for an higher meaning than any which lies on their surface, or which they seem to bear on their fronts; or rather of searching out their highest intention, and claiming that as their truest, even though it should not be that perceived in them by most, or that which lay nearest to them at their first generation, is one that will lead us in many interesting paths. And it is not merely those of heathen antiquity which shall thus be persuaded often, and that without any forcing, to render up a Christian meaning; but (as was indeed to be expected) still more often those of a later time, even those which the world had seemed to claim for its own, shall be found to move in a spiritual sphere as their truest. Let me offer in evidence of this these four or five, which come to us from Italy: He who has love in his heart, has spurs in his sides;—Love rules without law;—Love rules his kingdom without a sword;—Love knows nothing of labour;—Love is the master of all arts. [192] Take these, even with the necessary drawbacks of my English translation; but still more, in their original beauty; and how exquisitely do they set forth, in whatever light you regard them, the free creative impulses of love, its delight to labour and to serve; how worthily do they glorify the kingdom of love as the only kingdom of a free and joyful obedience. While yet at the same time, if we would appreciate them at all their worth, is it possible to stop short of an application of them to that kingdom of love, which, because it is in the highest sense such, is also a kingdom of heaven? And then, what precious witness do these utterances contain, the more precious as current among a people nursed in the theology of Rome, against the shameless assertion that selfishness is the only motive sufficient to produce good (?) works: for in such an assertion the Romish impugners of a free justification constantly deal; evermore charging this that we hold, of our justification by faith only, (which, when translated into the language of ethics, is at least as important in the province of morality as it is in that of theology,) with being an immoral doctrine, and not so fruitful in deeds of love as one which should connect these deeds with a selfish thought of promoting our own safety thereby.
Christian proverbs.
There are proverbs which reach the height of evangelical morality. “Little gospels” [193] the Spaniard has somewhat too boldly entitled his; and certainly there are many which at once we feel could nowhere have arisen or obtained circulation but under the influence of Christian faith, being in spirit, and often in form no less than in spirit, the outbirths of it. Thus is it with that exquisitely beautiful proverb of our own: The way to heaven is by Weeping-Cross; [194] nor otherwise with the Spanish: God never wounds with both hands; [195] not with both, for He ever reserves one with which to bind up and to heal. And another Spanish, evidently intended to give the sum and substance of all which in life is to be desired the most, Peace and patience, and death with penitence, [196] gives this sum certainly only as it presents itself to the Christian eye. And this of ours is Christian both in form and in spirit: Every cross hath its inscription;—the name, that is, inscribed upon it, of the person for whom it was shaped; it was intended for those shoulders upon which it is laid, and will adapt itself to them; that fearful word is never true which a spirit greatly vexed spake in the hour of its impatience: “I have little faith in the paternal love which I need; so ruthless, or so negligent seems the government of this earth.” [197]
So too is it with that ancient German proverb: When God loathes aught, men presently loathe it too. [198] He who first uttered this must have been one who had watched long the ways by which shame and honour travel in this world; and in this watching must have noted how it ever came to pass that even worldly honour tarried not long with them from whom the true honour which cometh from God had departed. For the worldly honour is but a shadow and reflex that waits upon the heavenly; it may indeed linger for a little, but it will be only for a little, after it is divorced from its substance. Where the honour from Him has been withdrawn, he causes in one way or another the honour from men ere long to be withdrawn too. When He loathes, presently man loathes also. The saltless salt is not merely cast out by Him, but is trodden under foot of men. (Matt. v. 13.) A Louis the Fifteenth’s death-bed is in its way as hideous to the natural as it is to the spiritual eye. [199]
Sir Matthew Hale’s proverb.
We are told of the good Sir Matthew Hale who was animated with a true zeal for holiness, an earnest desire to walk close to God, that he had continually in his mouth the modern Latin proverb, We perish by permitted things. [200] Assuredly it is one very well worthy to be of all remembered, searching as it does into the innermost secrets of men’s lives. It is no doubt true that nearly as much danger threatens the soul from things permitted as from things unpermitted; in some respects more danger; for these being disallowed altogether, do not make the insidious approaches of those, which, coming in under allowance, do yet so easily slip into dangerous excess.
Proverbs and Scripture.
It would be interesting to collect, as with reverence one might, variations on scriptural proverbs or sayings, which the proverbs of this world supply; and this, both in those cases where the latter have grown out of the former, owing more nearly or more remotely their existence to them, and in those also where they are independent of them,—so far, that is, as anything true can be independent of the absolute Truth. Some of those which follow evidently belong to one of these classes, some to the other. Thus Solomon has said: “It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house;” (Prov. xxi. 9;) and again: “Better a dry morsel and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife.” (Prov. xvii. 1.) With these compare the two proverbs, a Latin and Spanish, adduced below. [201] The Psalmist has said: “As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him.” (Ps. cix. 17.) The Turks express their faith in this same law of the divine retaliations: Curses, like chickens, always come home to roost; they return, that is, to those from whom they went forth, while in the Yoruba language there is a proverb to the same effect: Ashes always fly back in the face of him that throws them; while our own, Harm watch, harm catch, and the Spanish, Who sows thorns, let him not walk barefoot, [202] are utterances of very nearly the same conviction. Our Lord declares, that without his Father there falls no single sparrow to the ground, that “not one of them is forgotten before God.” (Luke xii. 6.) The same truth of a providentia specialissima, (between which and no providence at all there is indeed no tenable position,) is asserted in the Catalan proverb: No leaf moves, but God wills it. [203] Again, He has said: “No man can serve two masters.” (Matt. vi. 24.) And the Spanish proverb: He who must serve two masters, must lie to one. [204] Or compare with Matt. xix. 29, this remarkable Arabic proverb: Purchase the next world with this; so shalt thou win both. He has spoken of “mammon of unrighteousness”—indicating hereby, in Leighton’s words, “that iniquity is so involved in the notion of riches, that it can very hardly be separated from them;” and this phrase Jerome illustrates by a proverb that would not otherwise have reached us; “that saying,” he says, “appears true to me: A rich man is either himself an unjust one, or the heir of one.” [205] Again, the Lord has said: “Many be called, but few chosen;” (Matt. xx. 16;) many have the outward marks of a Christian profession, few the inner substance. Some early Christian Fathers loved much to bring into comparison with this a Greek proverb, spoken indeed quite independently of it, and long previously; and the parallel certainly is a singularly happy one: The thyrsus-bearers are many, but the bacchants few; [206] many assume the signs and outward tokens of inspiration, whirling the thyrsus aloft; but those whom the god indeed fills with his spirit are few all the while. [207] With our Lord’s words concerning the mote and the beam (Matt. vii. 3, 5) compare this Chinese proverb: Sweep away the snow from thine own door, and heed not the frost upon thy neighbour’s tiles.