Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/1407

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peacefulness, to gentle resignation (Pro 14:30), quietness of mind (Pro 14:33) and humility (Pro 11:2; Pro 15:33; Pro 16:5, Pro 16:18), to mercy (even toward beasts, Pro 12:10), to firmness and sincerity of conviction, to the furtherance of one's neighbour by means of wise discourse and kind help. What is done in the Book of Deuteronomy with reference to he law is continued here. As in Deuteronomy, so here, love is at the bottom of its admonitions, the love of God to men, and the love of men to one another in their diverse relations (Deu 12:2; Deu 15:9); the conception of צדקה gives way to that of charity, of almsgiving (δικαιοσύνη = ἐλεημοσύνη). Forgiving, suffering love (Pro 10:12), love which does good even to enemies (Pro 25:21.), rejoices not over the misfortune that befalls an enemy (Pro 24:17.), retaliates not (Pro 24:28.), but commits all to God (Pro 20:22) - love in its manifold forms, as that of husband and wife, of children, of friends - is here recommended with New Testament distinctness and with deepest feeling. Living in the fear of God (Pro 28:14), the Omniscient (Pro 15:3, Pro 15:11; Pro 16:2; Pro 21:2; Pro 24:11.), to whom as the final Cause all is referred (Pro 20:12, Pro 20:24; Pro 14:31; Pro 22:2), and whose universal plan all must subserve (Pro 16:4; Pro 19:21; Pro 21:30), and on the other side active pure love to man - these are the hinges on which all the teachings of wisdom in the Proverbs turn. Frederick Schlegel, in the fourteenth of his Lectures on the History of Literature, distinguishes, not without deep truth, between the historico-prophetic books of the Old Testament, or books of the history of redemption, and the Book of Job, the Psalms, and the Solomonic writings, as books of aspiration, corresponding to the triple chord of faith, hope, charity as the three stages of the inner spiritual life. The Book of Job is designed to support faith amid trials; the Psalms breathe forth and exhibit hope amid the conflicts of earth's longings; the Solomonic writings reveal to us the mystery of the divine love, and the Proverbs that wisdom which grows out of and is itself eternal love. When Schlegel in the same lecture says that the books of the Old Covenant, for the most part, stand under the signature of the lion as the element of the power of will and spirited conflict glowing in divine fire, but that in the inmost hidden kernel and heart of the sacred book the Christian figure of the lamb rises up out of the veil of this lion strength, this may specially be said of the Book of Proverbs, for here that same heavenly wisdom preaches, which, when manifested in person, spake in the Sermon on the Mount, New Testament love in the midst of the Old Testament.