If the Wisdom spoken of by Solomon be none other than Christ, the house of Wisdom must be the spiritual house which Christ builds His Church. This house is described as being strong and stable. Wisdom hath hewn out her seven pillars. Seven is the number constantly used in the Bible to typify perfection or completeness: and the meaning is, that the building rests on so many and such strong pillars that, once erected, it will never fall.
I. The first pillar is that of Faith, which rests the most directly upon the foundation of all that Rock which is Christ.
II. The second pillar is that of Hope. Despair is a deadly element in the spiritual house. There is no greater traitor in our camp than he who cries, "All is lost."
III. The pillar of Love binds the whole building together, "the very bond of peace and of all virtues." If faith be the foundation-stone on which the building rests, and hope the soaring tower which points to heaven, love is the porch by which all must enter, and without which they are intruders, who have climbed up some other way.
IV. There is the pillar of Discretion: the spirit which knows what to say and what not to say, what to do and what to leave undone. We are often discredited with the world because we lack this pillar in our building.
V. There is the pillar of Sacrifice. There is no room for drones in the hive, no place in the house for those who have not helped to build it, or are not helping to make it serve the purpose for which it was built.
VI. There is the pillar of Truthfulness. As a matter of eventual success, no less than of Christian duty, we must renounce the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
VII. The last pillar is that of Memory. Not only is the Church built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, we are surrounded also by a great cloud of witnesses, of all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues a multitude which no man can number, who form the unbroken line of our spiritual ancestry. We must not cut ourselves off from these. The memories of the past belong to the Church, as much as the hopes of the future.
A. Blomfield, Sermons in Town and Country,p. 260.
References: Proverbs 9:1-5. Clergyman's Magazine, vol.xxii., p. 80; C. Kingsley, Discipline and other Sermons,p. 11; Outline Sermons to Children,p. 70.