Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.
These verses are introduced with great beauty after the former. Having in some measure prepared the heart for receiving instruction, by turning up the fallow ground, to sow in righteousness. Christ is here introduced in his gracious office, as calling upon the sinner, wounded under a sense of sin, to look unto him and to be saved. Hosea 10:12; Isaiah 45:22. I do not think it necessary to detain the Reader with a long commentary on the several parts of this divine sermon; for if (as I pray the Lord may be the case) the Lord the Holy Ghost be our Teacher, it is his gracious office to take of the things of Jesus and skew them to us. And under his teaching it will not be difficult to find Jesus in every part of it. John 16:14. I must not, however, omit one observation in this place, because it is important. The word here translated, wisdom, is in the original, in the plural number wisdoms. I do not positively presume to say, wherefore it is so; but I venture to believe, that as wisdom is a well-known office-character of Jesus, as the Christ; that is in united natures of God and wan in one Person; it was intended to convey to the church, that Christ is in the abstract, all wisdoms in one; for in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Colossians 2:3. And I am the more inclined to this opinion, because the sacred writers, in their reference to Jesus, seem to delight in plurals. We have a beautiful example of this kind in the first Psalm. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, etc. The man here spoken of, can be no other than Christ, for very obvious reasons, as I have shewn in the commentary on that part of scripture. For none among the fallen sons of men can be said with truth to be blessed, but in him. But what I particularly request the Reader to observe with me now is, that the word translated in that psalm blessed, is also in the plural number, and implying all blessedness in one. And Christ is all this; for as blessedness doth not consist in one good thing, but a thorough and complete blessedness takes in all, so Christ and Christ alone is this: and He that is wisdom, being the essential source and fountain of all wisdom to all the different streams of it, is no less the whole sum and substance of blessedness in giving existence to it in all the distributions of it among his creatures. Reader! I pray you pause over the thought! And think what an infinite mind must our Jesus possess, since every portion of knowledge, and intellect, and wisdom, is derived from Him who is in himself wisdoms. Conceive, if possible, what blessedness in all the fullness of infinity, must constitute Him, who is our Christ, in whom all nations of the earth can alone be blessed! Psalms 72:17. And Reader! do indulge me with adding one thought more for your meditation on this sweet subject, as well as my own. If Jesus be thus wisdoms and blessedness in the full aggregate of both, to the total exclusion of every other, but as derived from him; think what unspeakable felicity must it be to be interested in him, yea, to be a part in him, by virtue of our union with him, as the Head of his church, and consequently entitled to all such proportions both of wisdom and blessedness as shall be for his glory, and his church's happiness! For we do not come to him to give us wisdom only, but for himself to be our wisdom; not only to give us blessedness, but himself to be our blessedness; and thus not only to bring us to the everlasting enjoyment of both; but to be himself the sum and substance of both, in being our wisdom, blessedness, and portion forever. Oh! the unspeakable blessedness of Christ, well may we cry out with the apostle, Now thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. 2 Corinthians 9:15.