Proverbs 20:12

Proverbs 20:12

I. How the eye tells the brain of the picture which is drawn upon the back of the eye; how the brain calls up that picture when it likes these are two mysteries beyond all man's wisdom to explain. These are two proofs of the wisdom and the power of God which ought to sink deeper into our hearts than all signs and wonders; greater proofs of God's power and wisdom than if yon fir-trees burst into flame of themselves, or yon ground opened and a fountain of water sprang out. The commonest things are as wonderful, more wonderful, than the uncommon; and yet people will hanker after the uncommon, as if they belonged to God more immediately than the commonest matters. That is not faith, to see God only in what is strange and rare; but this is faith, to see God in what is most common and simple; to know God's greatness, not so much from disorder as from order; not so much from those strange sights in which God seems (but only seems) to break His laws, as from those common ones in which He fulfils His laws.

II. When a man sees that, there will arise within his soul a clear light, and an awful joy, and an abiding peace, and a sure hope, and a faith as of a little child. Then will that man crave no more for signs and wonders; but all his cry will be to the Lord of order, to make him orderly; to the Lord of law, to make him loyal; to the Lord in whom is nothing arbitrary, to take out of him all that is unreasonable and self-willed; and make him content, like his Master Christ before him, to do the will of his Father in heaven, who has sent him into this noble world.

C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons,p. 224.

References: Proverbs 20:12. W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven,2nd series, p. 175.Proverbs 20:14. W. Baird, The Hallowing of our Common Life,p. 13; T. Binney, King's Weighhouse Chapel Sermons,1st series, p. 384; W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven,2nd series, p. 187. Proverbs 20:15. R. Wardlaw, Lectures on Proverbs,vol. ii., p. 350.