5. _Feet that be swift in running to mischief._ Feet listless in the ways of brotherly service or holy worship, but swift, twinkling with eager haste, when any mischief is toward, are marked by God--and hated. 6. And _a false witness_ is abominable to Him, the poisoner of all social life, the destroyer of all justice between man and man. Again and again in this book is censure passed upon this unpardonable crime.[109] 7. Finally, as the blessing of Heaven descends on the peacemaker, so the hatred of God assails the man _who sows discord among brethren_. Such is the character that God abominates, the character which binds itself with cords of penalty and falls into irretrievable ruin. And then, after this disquisition on some of the vices which destroy the individual life and disturb society, our author turns again to that snaring vice which is so much the more destructive because it comes under the guise, not of hate, but of love. Those other vices after all bear their evil on their faces, but this is veiled and enchanted with a thousand plausible sophistries; it pleads the instincts of nature, the fascinations of beauty, the faults of the present social state, and even advances the august precepts of science. Surely in a way where such a danger lurks we need a commandment which will shine as a lamp, a law which will be itself a light (ver. 23). FOOTNOTES: [95] See Prov. xvii. 18, xx. 16, repeated in xxvii. 13, and especially xi. 15. [96] Prov. xxii. 26, 27. [97] Eccles. xxix. 14, 16, 17, 18, 19. [98] Prov. xxiv. 30-34; see for a fuller treatment of the subject Lecture XX. [99] Prov. xxx. 25-27. [100] It is the word used in Exod. v. 6 of those who directed the tasks of the Israelites in Egypt. [101] Prov. vi. 6-8. [102] Prov. vi. 12-15. [103] _Cf._ the proverb xvi. 30--"He that shutteth his eyes, it is to devise froward things: he that compresseth his lips bringeth evil to pass." [104] _Cf._ Prov. xx. 14: "It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer: but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth." [105] It is probably assumed that warnings and corrections have been given him in vain--_cf._ Prov. xxix. 1: "He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be broken, and that without remedy." [106] Prov. vi. 16-19. [107] Prov. xxx. 13. See Lecture XIII. for the teaching of the Proverbs on Pride. [108] Prov. xii. 19. [109] See Prov. xii. 17; xiv. 5, 25; xix. 5, 9. A crime, it may be remembered, which would be much more common and much more fatal in a primitive state of society, where on the one hand legal procedure was less cautious and less searching, and on the other hand the inward sanctions of truth which Christianity has brought home to the modern conscience were but feebly perceived. VII. _REALISM IN MORAL TEACHING._ "I looked forth through my lattice; and I beheld."--PROV. vii. 6.