Bridges’ Proverbs is “The best work on the Proverbs. While explaining the passage in hand, he sets other portions of the Word in new lights.”—C. H. Spurgeon

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“While other parts of Scripture show us the glory of our high calling, this book may instruct us in all minuteness of detail how to “walk worthy” of it (Col 1:10). We see the minuteness of out Christian obligations; that there is not a temper, a look, a word, a movement, the most important action of the day, the smallest relative duty, in which we do not either deface or adorn the image of our Lord, and the profession of His name. Surely if the book conduced to no other end, it tends to humble even the most consistent servant of God, in consciousness of countless failures. The whole book is a mirror for us all, not only to show our defects, but also [as] a guidebook and directory for godly conduct.”

Our young are growing up at a period, when "the foundations of the earth are out of course;" and when subtle and restless efforts are making to poison their hearts, and pervert their ways. Nothing therefore can be more important, than to fortify them with sound principles; that, when withdrawn from the parental wing into a world or a Church (alas! that we should be constrained to use, the term!) of temptation, they may be manifestly under a Divine cover, as the children of a special Providence. What this invaluable Book impresses upon their minds is, the importance of deep-seated principles in the heart; the responsibility of conduct in every step of life; the danger of trifling deviations for expediency's sake; the value of self-discipline; the habit of bringing everything to the Word of God; the duty of weighing in just balances a worldly and a heavenly portion, and thus deciding the momentous choice of an everlasting good before the toys of earth. These lessons, thoroughly inwrought, will prove the best security against all attempts to loosen the hold of principle, and to entice upon enchanted ground. This practical godliness--so far from wearing a forbidding, look, or being associated with gloom or sadness--casts a smile over a world of sorrow, is a sunbeam of comfort in suffering, and ever a principle of peace and steadfastness. "Great peace have they which love thy law; and nothing shall offend them." (Ps. cxix. 165.)

—Charles Bridges, from the Preface, 1846