8:12. My vineyard is before me. A thousand are for thee, the peaceable, and two hundred for them that keep the fruit thereof.
8:13. Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the friends hearken: make me hear thy voice.
8:14. Flee away, O my beloved, and be like to the roe, and to the young hart upon the mountains of aromatical spices.
THE BOOK OF WISDOM
This Book is so called, because it treats of the excellence of WISDOM, the means to obtain it, and the happy fruits it produces. It is written in the person of Solomon, and contains his sentiments. But it is uncertain who was the writer. It abounds with instructions and exhortations to kings and all magistrates to minister justice in the commonwealth, teaching all kinds of virtues under the general names of justice and wisdom. It contains also many prophecies of Christ’s coming, passion, resurrection, and other Christian mysteries. The whole may be divided into three parts. In the first six chapters, the author admonishes all superiors to love and exercise justice and wisdom. In the next three, he teacheth that wisdom proceedeth only from God, and is procured by prayer and a good life. In the other ten chapters, he sheweth the excellent effects and utility of wisdom and justice.
Wisdom Chapter 1
An exhortation to seek God sincerely, who cannot be deceived, and desireth not our death.
1:1. Love justice, you that are the judges of the earth. Think of the Lord in goodness, and seek him in simplicity of heart:
1:2. For he is found by them that tempt him not: and he sheweth himself to them that have faith in him.
1:3. For perverse thoughts separate from God: and his power, when it is tried, reproveth the unwise: