day," even till Christ himself, " the Sun of righteousness, arise upon you with healing in his wings." O seek to " grow in grace, and in the knowled-'-e of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ! " Be constant in your attendance on the ordinances of God ; search the Scriptures, and treasure them up in your hearts; and, above all, " be instant in prayer" for fresh supplies of the Spirit of Christ : then shall you be guided into all truth; and "the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun seven-fold, as the light of seven days."]
Prov. viii. 35, 36. Whoso findeth me, Jindeih life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord. But he that sinneth against me, tvrongeth his 0W7i soul : all they that hate me, love death.
IT is common in the prophetic writings to find expressions which really relate to the Messiah, w^hile they apparently speak only of some other person or thing ; and while other expressions in the same pas- sage have no proper reference to him at all. It is impossible not to notice this in the 22d and 69th Psalms, and in many other places which are quoted in the New Testament as referring to him. The same mode of speaking, we apprehend, may be ob- served in the chapter before us. In some parts of it, true religion seems to be characterized under the term "Wisdom;" but in others, Christ himself. From the 22d to the 31st verse, the language cannot well be interpreted as designating religion, nor even an attribute of the Deity : it can only be understood of God's eternal Son, who lay in the bosom of the Father, and before the foundation of the earth re- joiced in the prospect of becoming an inhabitant of this globe, for the salvation of sinful man. Yet, on the whole, we apprehend, that the exhortation to Wisdom at the beginning of the chapter speaks rather of piety as the proper object of our pursuit. We are sure that this is the general import of the term throughout the book of Proverbs ; and that piety, as personified under this name, frequently addresses us. We rather lean therefore to the safe