Wisdom meant more to the Jews than to us, who have lost the sense of man's unity by subdividing his faculties. It embraced to the Jew the mental and material range of the spiritual life: the ministers and magicians of Pharaoh are wise; so are Solomon and the angels; but also, "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," and the wise man is the ideally good man in Proverbs 16:21; Proverbs 16:23.
I. Wisdom is ever at work in the world. Civilisation is nature inspired by man's wisdom. The Book of Proverbs does little else than honour continuously the victorious mind of man.
II. We find that man is not final original. A source of wisdom behind is suggested; our partial and fitful intellect points back. God is the fountain; we are the channels. God's wisdom touched the gross chaos with intention, and its epic is the first chapter of Genesis. The only beautiful thing in mechanical and other processes is the reflection of God's wisdom in ours. What a great hoard of humility we should have if this were recognised!
III. We need our beliefs for ordinary life; sorrow is inevitable, and the ghastly thing about it is, that we feel as if it were preordained when we are in it. It is like the mountain shadow, or the crouching lion awaiting the weary pilgrim on the plain. Wisdom has something to say: "I am older than sorrow." She bears testimony to God's plan, to His love, justice, and thoughtfulness. And so in temptation, when the world seems to be spinning a net round us, wisdom soothes us. She is before temptation. This Wisdom is Christ, the "Word" of St. John. What wonder, since "Word" is the utterance of Wisdom! In the Atonement Christ is peculiarly the Wisdom of the world; He conquers a lower obstacle; God's love, before confined, pours into the sinner over a broken barrier.
Phillips Brooks, Oxford Magazine,June 3rd, 1885.