William Henry Green Files
What is the abundance of the sea here spoken of, and how shall it be converted to the benefit of the Church of God ? The seas, which girdle or indent our continents and en compass our globe, are of as great consequence to the world in fitting it up to be the abode of man, as they are in their geographical or physical relations to the land in regulating its temperature, and its winds, or watering its surface to adapt it to the support of vegetable and animal life. I need not remind my present audience, how in the history of man it has invariably been maritime nations which have been distinguished for wealth , and power, and cultivation ; and how every great movement toward the elevation of the race has begun, not in the centre of continents and extended out ward, but upon the coast, and spread itself inward. It is sufficient here to allude to the names of Tyre, Carthage, Alexandria, Venice, Greece, Rome, Holland, Britain. The very mention of their names will bring up to your minds all that we would say. And we have no idea of going here into an exposition, either historical or argumentative, .of the benefits of foreign commerce. In reply, then, to the question what is meant by the abundance of the sea, we point you to the riches, and the civilization , and the power, which are the fruits of com mercial intercourse ; and we tell you these shall be turned into Christian channels, and converted to Christian ends. We take you to the thronging wharves, and show you state ly vessels, freighted with their valuable cargoes, storehouses filled, and the very streets crowded with the products of every clime. We take you to the noble mansions of our merchant princes, built from the treasures of the sea. We request you to inspect the elegancies and conveniences, and even what are considered necessaries by all our citizens, and mark for how many they are indebted to them that go down to the sea, and do business in great waters. We point you to the large and wealthy cities which have sprung up all along the sea-board, and which owe all their prosperity and importance, and their existence even, to the traffic which pours into them as commercial centres. We wish you to see how the products of the sea are scattered over the continent, and how the most remote inland points are opening up their communication with the coast, that they may, if possible, divert upon themselves some of these enriching streams. We ask you to look at the enterprise that is fostered, the civilization that is acquired by intercourse with foreign parts, the gathering in of all that is seen useful or valuable abroad in all parts of the world, and making the centre of trade the focus of human progress and advancement in every possible respect. Then consider the strength arising to a nation from these wooden walls, and the influence acquired by its vessels visiting every shore. We ask you to carry these out in all their endless ramifications and influences upon nations and upon man kind, and to estimate their value, and then set down, col lected in one vast aggregate, what the nations of the earth now are above what they would have been but for the ad vantages, that have been reaped from commercial inter course. Tell me what this has given them in individual wealth, and cultivation, and resources, in national ele vation, and prosperity; this is the abundance gathered from the seas ; all this our text declares shall be con verted unto Zion, to be used for Zion's God. This wealth, this power, this culture, shall all be hers, expended for her sake, devoted to her interests, laid out in her service. It shall be acknowledged that to God belongs the increase of the seas, as well as the increase of the land. They, into whose hands it shall be given, shall use it as every worldly advantage should be used, for the glory of God, the extension of his earthly kingdom, and the best inte rests of our race. -William Henry Green; The Abundance of the Sea; 1850
Proverbs 27
Proverbs 27:1-6:
1 Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
2 Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.
3 A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both.
4 Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?
5 Open rebuke is better than secret love.
6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
1 Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
2 Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.
3 A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both.
4 Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?
5 Open rebuke is better than secret love.
6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
|
Proverbs 27:7:
7 The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. |
 Thomas Watson
“Keep a clear conscience. Contentment is the manna that is laid up in the ark of a good conscience: O take heed of indulging any sin! it is as natural for guilt to breed disquiet, as for putrid matter to breed vermin. Sin lies as Jonah in the ship, it raiseth a tempest. If dust or motes be gotten into the eye, they make the eye water, and cause a soreness in it; if the eye be clear, then it is free from that soreness; if sin be gotten into the conscience, which is as the eye of the soul, then grief and disquiet breed there; but keep the eye of conscience clear, and all is well. What Solomon saith of a good stomach, I may say of a good conscience, "to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet:"Pr. 27. 7 so to a good conscience every bitter thing is sweet; it can pick contentment out of the cross. A good conscience turns the waters of Marah into wine. Would you have a quiet heart? Get a smiling conscience. I wonder not to hear Paul say he was in every state content, when he could make that triumph, "I have lived in all good conscience to this day." When once a man's reckonings are clear, it must needs let in abundance of contentment into the heart. Good conscience can suck contentment out of the bitterest drug, under slanders; "our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience."2 Cor. 1. 12 In case of imprisonment, Paul had his prison songs, and could play the sweet lessons of contentment, when his feet were in the stocks.Ac. 16. 25 Augustine calls it "the paradise of a good conscience;" and if it be so, then in prison we may be in paradise. When the times are troublesome, a good conscience makes a calm. If conscience be clear, what though the days be cloudy? is it not a contentment to have a friend always by to speak a good word for us? Such a friend is conscience. A good conscience, as David's harp, drives away the evil spirit of discontent. When thoughts begin to arise, and the heart is disquieted, conscience saith to a man, as the king did to Nehemiah, "why is thy countenance sad?" so saith conscience, hast not thou the seed of God in thee? art not thou an heir of the promise? hast not thou a treasure that thou canst never be plundered of? why is thy countenance sad? O keep conscience clear, and you shall never want contentment! For a man to keep the pipes of his body, the veins and arteries, free from colds and obstructions, is the best way to maintain health: so, to keep conscience clear, and to preserve it from the obstructions of guilt, is the best way to maintain contentment. First, conscience is pure, and then peaceable.” ― Thomas Watson, The Art of Divine Contentment
|
Proverbs 27:8-16:
8 As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place.
9 Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel.
10 Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not; neither go into thy brother's house in the day of thy calamity: for better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off.
11 My son, be wise, and make my heart glad, that I may answer him that reproacheth me.
12 A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished.
13 Take his garment that is surety for a stranger, and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.
14 He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him.
15 A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.
16 Whosoever hideth her hideth the wind, and the ointment of his right hand, which bewrayeth itself.
8 As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place.
9 Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel.
10 Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not; neither go into thy brother's house in the day of thy calamity: for better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off.
11 My son, be wise, and make my heart glad, that I may answer him that reproacheth me.
12 A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished.
13 Take his garment that is surety for a stranger, and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.
14 He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him.
15 A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.
16 Whosoever hideth her hideth the wind, and the ointment of his right hand, which bewrayeth itself.
|
Proverbs 27:17:
17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. |
Proverbs is a book of the Bible that contains words of wisdom that have held up for centuries. Proverbs 27:17 always stuck with me and was an inspiration for this blog.
If we took a 10,000-foot view of society over the last few decades, it would be safe to say that we have been spiraling downward. Masculinity has been painted as toxic, chivalry is often seen as disrespectful, and the notion of “mansplaining” just further degrades the role of men in our culture. Can men do anything right? As Proverbs 27:17 implies, we need men today who will sharpen each other’s strengths and dull each other’s weaknesses rather than bring each other down. -Gary Drevitch |
The purpose, identity and vision for our lives has been illustrated and embodied by God in and through His Word. The vision for the iron comes from outside itself, most likely from a metal worker or ironsmith. Iron is a natural occurring element and left to itself will not change its shape or purpose. The ironsmith has a vision for the iron, like God has a vision for what He intends our lives to look like.
That brings us to our intentions to change. It is not enough to just have a vision, there must be an intention to change. We can have a vision to get stronger, lose weight, throw harder or hit the ball farther, but if we never intend to change, our visions are wishes and dreams. Like the ironsmith, we must fully intend to put in the necessary work. This is where thought and imagination begin to move into action. We know that God has a vision for what it means to be human and He fully intends for that vision to come to fruition. God’s intention for a restored and redeemed humanity is made evident in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. -Josh Lindblom
That brings us to our intentions to change. It is not enough to just have a vision, there must be an intention to change. We can have a vision to get stronger, lose weight, throw harder or hit the ball farther, but if we never intend to change, our visions are wishes and dreams. Like the ironsmith, we must fully intend to put in the necessary work. This is where thought and imagination begin to move into action. We know that God has a vision for what it means to be human and He fully intends for that vision to come to fruition. God’s intention for a restored and redeemed humanity is made evident in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. -Josh Lindblom
Dr. H. Steinthal Files
It is surprising how the evidences of divine wisdom and fore- sight thicken about him, who has once commenced to observe them. The defect of one of the smallest members of the hu- man frame would have rendered all the skill with which the rest was constructed abortive, and have made man’s creation a failure. Without the eye, for instance, mankind could not have subsisted. Without the tongue they would have remained for ever in a state of idiocy or barbarism. There is no more elementary truth in human advancement, than that mind must be acted on by mind in order to its culture and development. The material world furnishes an abundance of objects for every sense, and its phenomena afford endless food for reflection. But in order that the spirit may be brought to act upon what is thus furnished for it, it must be roused and stimulated by spirit. “ Iron sharpeneth iron,” said the wisest of men ; “ so a man sharpened the countenance of his friend.” A man isolated from his species from the first moment of his being, would of necessity be scarcely lifted above the brutes. Only by intercourse with his fellows can he be humanized. Hence language, the medium of intercourse between man and man, is the great humanizer ; and without the gift of speech civilization and culture would be impossible. How sublime in its simplicity, and how grand in its results, is this conception of making thought audible, and opening thus, through the medium of an outward sense, communication between mind and mind ! These invisible, intangible, immaterial, mysterious agents within us can thus be brought in contact: the thoughts, ideas, feelings, knowledge, experience of one can be forthwith imparted to another. The man of hoary hairs can put the stripling, in the outset of his course, in possession of that which he laboured long years to obtain. The man of earnest thought can stamp his impress upon those around him, and waken in them an activity like his own. Set free by the faculty of speech, man’s spirit no longer lives alone, shut up a prisoner in solitary confinement in its mortal cell. The doors are thrown wide open and the man is set in living connection with all around him. Knowledge no longer streams in barely through his single perceptions, or is the product of his single reflections. The eyes of those around see for him : their minds think for him ; for their experience and their thoughts can now be added to his own. And his intellectual power and wealth grows without limit, as the tiny drop, by kindred drops falling thick and fast around it in a summer’s shower, forms first a rill, a rivulet, a brook, a river, and at last a flood.
And yet the sphere of man, though thus vastly widened by the gift of speech, is still narrow and contracted. Speech has opened communication for us with a little circle just around us, those whom we personally meet. If we would gather up the experience of men in other lands, and add their thoughts to our own, we must, like the wise men of ancient times, Pythagoras, Plato, Herodotus, travel far and near. But few can do this jand how few of their species can he personally visited, even by those who do possess ability to travel ! From how large a part of the race are we necessarily cut off! And then the men of past generations are buried in the dust. Are they by con- sequence lost for ever to the world ? And have all their earnest thoughts and zealous labours, and careful observations been sunk irrecoverably like lead in the wide waste of waters ? Have all the genius, and the intellect of former days vanished thus, leaving no trace behind ? And must those of each age be in this way lost to their successors ? Who will give to the absent a tongue, and to the dead a tongue ? We need an instrument to annihilate for us time and space, and to prevent this monstrous waste of intellectual power and acquisition; to take the evanescent thought, and to convert it—not into an equally evanescent sound that dies away upon the ear as soon as it is uttered, but give to it a permanent and tangible and portable form. We need some magic wand, some potent spell to give immortality to thoughts ; to bring around us the great and good of this and of every land, of this and of all past ages, and bid them talk with us at our own homes, and unlade all the wdsdom they have gathered at our feet ; to put our minds into living contact with all the world at once, and all who have ever lived, so that all their rich furniture of cultivated thought and pure and elevated taste, and ripe judgment and matured experience, the intellec- tual treasures of mankind gathered through long ages, may be displayed before us. This would sound like some wild dream of enchantment, had it not all been realized, and that by a method as simple in its principles as its results are magnificent.
You can sit in your library, in your easy chair, with your fire blazing brightly on your own hearth before you, and you can there converse with men of every age and every clime. You can travel back long centuries before the Christian era, and can stand face to face with Moses and Solomon and Isaiah. Or you can sit at the feet of the Son of God himself, or talk with his apostles of all that they were commissioned to make known of the salvation he achieved. Turn to Grecian antiquity ; and the father of history will tell you all that he could learn in his long journeys and careful observations of the state and origin of ancient empires. Blind old Ilomer will sing again for youhis immortal song. Demosthenes will thunder as of old at the rostrum. Socrates and Plato and Aristotle will entertain you with their profound and elaborate inquiries. Or Rome will send you her historians and poets and orators and logicians and philosophers, all ready in their turn to communicate to you their maturest thoughts, their most brilliant conceptions, and their gathered stores of knowledge. Still seated by your own cheerful fireside, you can follow down the stream of time, and summon around you, at your bidding, the rare, commanding intellects of each successive age—those who have toiled most and achieved most in any favourite department of thought or learn- ing—till you come to the busy, bustling present. And then, if you choose, you can take up the newspaper of to-day, and learn what twenty millions have been seeing and hearing and thinking and doing yesterday, from Maine to Louisiana—in fact, what has, within a few weeks, been taking place all round the globe. You have, thus, the whole civilized world put into your service; looking out for you, listening for you, labouring to increase your stores. The astronomer, with his telescope, be he at Harvard, at Greenwich, at Berlin, or at Washington, is deter- mining for you the magnitudes and movements of the stars. The chemist is experimenting for you in his laboratory. The geologist is examining for you the structure of the earth. The traveller is inspecting for you the manners and the sights of foreign climes. The antiquarian is digging for you among the hoary ruins of Nineveh and Thebes. The orator, the metaphysician, the poet, are busy, each with their several labours, that they may increase the stores of your intellect, or add to the refinement of your taste. You have all the intellect of the world, all the eyes and ears and fingers of ancient and of modern times laid under contribution : the entire results of their labours are at your service. Instead of picking up scanty bits of knowledge by your single observations, with no assist- tance and no stimulus, nothing but the natural and uninstructed workings of your single powers, you have here gathered into one accessible and available mass the combined labours, experience, and reflections of the greatest sages, most profound thinkers, and acute observers. This is what our fairy has achieved. The fairy’s name is Writing—her magic wand,the pen. Her office is to record thought; no matter how that record be made, so that it be brought into a permanent, accessible, intelligible form, for the use of other men and other times. This alone gives permanence to intellectual achievements, and makes progressive advances in knowledge and civil- ization possible. But for this, the acquisitions of each generation would be buried with it, and an increase of knowledge from age to age would be as impossible as it was in the old mythology, for the daughters of Danaus to fill with water their casks without a bottom.
---Dr. H. Steinthal; The Origin of Writing; 1854
And yet the sphere of man, though thus vastly widened by the gift of speech, is still narrow and contracted. Speech has opened communication for us with a little circle just around us, those whom we personally meet. If we would gather up the experience of men in other lands, and add their thoughts to our own, we must, like the wise men of ancient times, Pythagoras, Plato, Herodotus, travel far and near. But few can do this jand how few of their species can he personally visited, even by those who do possess ability to travel ! From how large a part of the race are we necessarily cut off! And then the men of past generations are buried in the dust. Are they by con- sequence lost for ever to the world ? And have all their earnest thoughts and zealous labours, and careful observations been sunk irrecoverably like lead in the wide waste of waters ? Have all the genius, and the intellect of former days vanished thus, leaving no trace behind ? And must those of each age be in this way lost to their successors ? Who will give to the absent a tongue, and to the dead a tongue ? We need an instrument to annihilate for us time and space, and to prevent this monstrous waste of intellectual power and acquisition; to take the evanescent thought, and to convert it—not into an equally evanescent sound that dies away upon the ear as soon as it is uttered, but give to it a permanent and tangible and portable form. We need some magic wand, some potent spell to give immortality to thoughts ; to bring around us the great and good of this and of every land, of this and of all past ages, and bid them talk with us at our own homes, and unlade all the wdsdom they have gathered at our feet ; to put our minds into living contact with all the world at once, and all who have ever lived, so that all their rich furniture of cultivated thought and pure and elevated taste, and ripe judgment and matured experience, the intellec- tual treasures of mankind gathered through long ages, may be displayed before us. This would sound like some wild dream of enchantment, had it not all been realized, and that by a method as simple in its principles as its results are magnificent.
You can sit in your library, in your easy chair, with your fire blazing brightly on your own hearth before you, and you can there converse with men of every age and every clime. You can travel back long centuries before the Christian era, and can stand face to face with Moses and Solomon and Isaiah. Or you can sit at the feet of the Son of God himself, or talk with his apostles of all that they were commissioned to make known of the salvation he achieved. Turn to Grecian antiquity ; and the father of history will tell you all that he could learn in his long journeys and careful observations of the state and origin of ancient empires. Blind old Ilomer will sing again for youhis immortal song. Demosthenes will thunder as of old at the rostrum. Socrates and Plato and Aristotle will entertain you with their profound and elaborate inquiries. Or Rome will send you her historians and poets and orators and logicians and philosophers, all ready in their turn to communicate to you their maturest thoughts, their most brilliant conceptions, and their gathered stores of knowledge. Still seated by your own cheerful fireside, you can follow down the stream of time, and summon around you, at your bidding, the rare, commanding intellects of each successive age—those who have toiled most and achieved most in any favourite department of thought or learn- ing—till you come to the busy, bustling present. And then, if you choose, you can take up the newspaper of to-day, and learn what twenty millions have been seeing and hearing and thinking and doing yesterday, from Maine to Louisiana—in fact, what has, within a few weeks, been taking place all round the globe. You have, thus, the whole civilized world put into your service; looking out for you, listening for you, labouring to increase your stores. The astronomer, with his telescope, be he at Harvard, at Greenwich, at Berlin, or at Washington, is deter- mining for you the magnitudes and movements of the stars. The chemist is experimenting for you in his laboratory. The geologist is examining for you the structure of the earth. The traveller is inspecting for you the manners and the sights of foreign climes. The antiquarian is digging for you among the hoary ruins of Nineveh and Thebes. The orator, the metaphysician, the poet, are busy, each with their several labours, that they may increase the stores of your intellect, or add to the refinement of your taste. You have all the intellect of the world, all the eyes and ears and fingers of ancient and of modern times laid under contribution : the entire results of their labours are at your service. Instead of picking up scanty bits of knowledge by your single observations, with no assist- tance and no stimulus, nothing but the natural and uninstructed workings of your single powers, you have here gathered into one accessible and available mass the combined labours, experience, and reflections of the greatest sages, most profound thinkers, and acute observers. This is what our fairy has achieved. The fairy’s name is Writing—her magic wand,the pen. Her office is to record thought; no matter how that record be made, so that it be brought into a permanent, accessible, intelligible form, for the use of other men and other times. This alone gives permanence to intellectual achievements, and makes progressive advances in knowledge and civil- ization possible. But for this, the acquisitions of each generation would be buried with it, and an increase of knowledge from age to age would be as impossible as it was in the old mythology, for the daughters of Danaus to fill with water their casks without a bottom.
---Dr. H. Steinthal; The Origin of Writing; 1854
Proverbs 27:18-27:
18 Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof: so he that waiteth on his master shall be honoured.
19 As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.
20 Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.
21 As the fining pot for silver, and the furnace for gold; so is a man to his praise.
22 Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.
23 Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.
24 For riches are not for ever: and doth the crown endure to every generation?
25 The hay appeareth, and the tender grass sheweth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered.
26 The lambs are for thy clothing, and the goats are the price of the field.
27 And thou shalt have goats' milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance for thy maidens.
18 Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof: so he that waiteth on his master shall be honoured.
19 As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.
20 Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.
21 As the fining pot for silver, and the furnace for gold; so is a man to his praise.
22 Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.
23 Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.
24 For riches are not for ever: and doth the crown endure to every generation?
25 The hay appeareth, and the tender grass sheweth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered.
26 The lambs are for thy clothing, and the goats are the price of the field.
27 And thou shalt have goats' milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance for thy maidens.