Proverbs 5

1. My son, attend unto my wisdom, and low thine ear to my understanding: 2. That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge. 3. For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: 4. But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. 5. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. 6. Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them. 7. Hear me now, therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. 8. Remove thy way from her, and come not near the door of her house: 9. Lest thou give thine honor unto others, and thy years unto the cruel: 10. Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth: and thy labors be in the house of a stranger; 11. And

1 Psalm xci. 11 — 13.

2 Ezek. i. 7 — 9. Comp. Heb. xii. 13. Nearly the LXX. translation of the last clause of verse 26.

3 See Ecclus. xix. 1. 4 jga. vjii. OQ 5 2 Cor y J6
Gen. xvii. 1 7 Gal. ii. 11-14. 8 Matt. Vi.*23.’

J Dent. XVH. 20. Jos. i. 7, 8. 10 Psaim cxix. 37 cxliii 81Q

u •’ ^’ 21’ The LXX” a”<l Vulgate adds here-’ For God knows the ricrht path on the right hand. But those on the left are perverted. But he shall make thy ways and advance thy steps in grace.’ Geier remarks — ‘We have no ear for these words jj not belonging to the holy fountain. We leave them to the Papists ’ (hnu mourn at the last, ivlien thy flesh and thy body are consumed, 12. How have I hated instruction, and my heart, despised reproof; 13. And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me! 14. I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

PONDER this chapter — ye that know not the poison and corruption of fleshly lusts. Painful experience had given the wise man wisdom and understanding. Therefore attend to it with fear and trembling. Man’s own strength — the restraints of education or of self-discipline are powerless, as the green withes to bind the giant.2 Engrafted wisdom is the only effectual safeguard. This heavenly influence teaches us to regard discretion for the covering of our souls, and to keep knowledge for the warning of our fellow-sinners.3

The extreme plausibility of the temptation is our call to attention. The deluded victim only sees the present gratification; only tastes, or expects to taste, the honeycomb; only hears the wily smoothness of the charmer’s voice.4 But never is the beginning so sweet, as the end is bitter. God shews the wormwood; the two-edged sword ;5 her path of death; every step taking hold of hell, as if invading it with a high hand, grasping it as her home.* One feature of the tempter’s wiliness is most remarkable. She winds herself in a thousand moveable ways, to meet the varying humors and circumstances.7 She works upon every weakness; seizes every unguarded moment — all this with one deeply hidden object — lest thou should ponder the path of life. The checks of conscience must be diverted. No time must be given for reflection. The intrusion of one serious thought might break the spell, and open the way of escape.8

Can we wonder then at the earnestness of parental anxiety, forcing back the children playing on the brink of a precipice. Hear now — O ye children? We mean no austere restraint upon youthful pleasures. Only avoid the tempter’s touch — her word — even her look. Remove thy way far from her. Not only go not into her — but — such is the contagion — come not near the door.8 To thrust ourselves into temptation, is to throw ourselves out of God’s protection. The snare as one approaches becomes more enticing. The voice of wisdom therefore is —” Flee youthful lusts?

The loss of honor™ taking the crown from the victim’s head;11 years given to the cruel mockers of his misery ;12 the waste of the family wealth;13 servitude in a stranger’s house ;u consumption —

1 1 Kings xi. 1 — 8. Eccl. vii. 26. 2 juj. xvi. 9.

3 Chap. ii. 10, 11, 16; vi. 20, 24; vii. 1 — 5. Psalm xvii. 4; cxix. 9, 11.

* Chap. ii. 16; vi. 24; vii. 21. 5 Comp. Ps. Iv. 21.

6 Schultens in loco. Chap. ii. 18; vii. 27; ix. 18. 1 Cor. vi. 9, 18. Rev. xxi. 8.

7 Chap. vi. 12, 13; vii. 12. 8 See Psalm cxix. 59. Ez. xviii. 28. Luke xv. 17. 9 Comp. chap. iv. 14, 15; vi. 27, 28.

10 Chap. vi. 32, 33. Gen. xxxviii. 23 — 26. 2 Sam. xii. 14; xiii. 13. Neh.xiii. 26.

Chap vi. 26; xxx. 3. Jud. xvi. 18 — 20.

-3 Chap. vi. 26, 35. Job xxxi. 12. Hos. vii. 9. Luke xv. 13, 30.

w Luke xv. 15, 16.

slowly bringing the body to the grave — all is the bitter fruit of the neglected warning. Add to this the voice of conscience at the last, telling of slighted privileges, stifled convictions, abused knowledge. And will not this be the sting of thousands instructed in our schools, or the children of godly parents — now despising the reproofs of God, and the voice of these teachers, proclaiming their shame openly; perhaps making Christian assemblies the scenes of almost all evil ?2

Such is the picture of sin — its “pleasure but for a season,” “its wages death eternal.”3 Every sin unrepented here will bring its perpetual torment in eternity. Impenitence does not put away its sorrow. It only delays it to mourn at the last, when mercy shall have fled away forever,4 and nothing will remain, but the piercing cry of the accusing conscience — “Son! remember.”5 There are no infidels in eternity, and but few on a death-bed. Sinner — the path of life is now open to thee. Ponder it anxiously — prayerfully. The light of the word, and the teaching of the Spirit guide thee to it.

15. Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. 16. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. 17. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers, with thee. 18. Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. 19. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all time-s; and be thou ravished always with (err thou always in.6 Marg. j her love.

A restless dissatisfaction with our present blessings cherishes the lust for forbidden pleasures. Where contentment is not found at home — drinking out of our own cistern, it will not be found abroad. Thus conjugal love — the greatest earthly blessing — is the Divine remedy against incontinence.7 ‘First — choose thy love; then love thy choice.’8 Q,uench thy thirst out of thine own, and lust not after thy neighbor’s, well* * Enjoy thou the lawful delights and contentments of thine own wile.’10 Let the streams of a happy issue derived from thee, as little fountains, or springs from the fountain — be dispersed abroad, fertilizing the streets™ with their godly influence — children whom thou knowest to be thine own, and canst acknowledge without shame.13 Rejoice with the wife of thy youth.1* 2 Num. xxv. 6, 7. Ezek. viii. 5 — 16. 3 Heb. xi. 25. Rom. vi. 23. * Chap. i. 24 — 30. 5 Luke xvi. 25.

6 Err. The primary meaning of the Heb. is to expatiate — luxuriate — run wild. Hence ‘to give a loose, indulge, or lose oneself in love.’ — “In errare, tanquam sui oblitum, et ainore quasi vagari.” — Parkhurst.

7 1 Cor. vii. 2, 36. See the Marriage Service.

8 Henry Smith’s Sermons. 4to. 1611 — 1614.

9 Ex. xx. 17. 2 Sam. xi. 2, 3. The beauty of the figure is illustrated from the cirumstance, that the houses of the East appear each to have had their own cisterns. 3

Kings xviii. 31.

11 Comp. Num. xxiv. 7. Deut.’xxxiii. 28. Psalm lxviii. 29. Isa. xlviii. 1.

‘2 Comp. Zech. viii. 5. 13 Psalm cxxvii. 3 — 5; cxxviii. 13.

w Deut. xxiv. 5. Eccl. ix 9.

.Receive her as the gracious gift of thy God. Cherish her, not with a sensual, doting, passion, but, as the loving hind and plea sant roe? with gentleness and familiarity.3 Count thyself most happy, as ravished with her love. Never err in giving liberty to thy passion, save in her society. It is riot the having, but the loving of. the wife, that covers the soul. A man chained to. an uncongenial wife is in imminent temptation. It is when she is as the hind and the roe, that the pleasures of lawful love preserve from lust — pleasures without a sting — yes truly — shadowing out the great mystery; “loving and cherishing our own flesh, even as the Lord the church.”4

20. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? 21. For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his goings. 22. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. 23. He shall die with” out instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.

With such a view of the ruinous pleasures of lust,5 and the holydelight of God’s ordinances;’ surely, if the sinner were not stupified, would he leave the pure fountain for the poisoned spring? Would he slight the “honorable” state of marriage,7 to embrace the bosom of a stranger — 4 loveless — joyless — unendeared?’ Would not the thought — that the ways of man are before the Lord — arrest him in his course?8 But no. Practical atheism is the root of human depravity.9 The eye of man — even of a child — is a check upon him. 10 But the thought of an all-seing God — even if it enters his mind11 — inspires no alarm, conviction, or restraint. Oh! if men would but read — would but believe — their Bibles, how would this solemn truth — he pondereth all his goings — flash upon their consciences! Not only does he see and mark them as the Omniscient God ;12 but he ponders them as the just Judge.13 Not one is hidden from his piercing eye.14 “He will bring every secret thing to judgment.”15 He “will be a swift witness against the adulterers.” No unclean person shall enter into his kingdom.16

But if no regard to reason, or to the All-seeing eye, will restrain the sinner, let him think of the trouble that he is bringing upon him self. He may go on awhile without trouble. God needs no chains or prison to bring him under his hand. Wherever he goes, his sins

i Chap. xix. 14. 2 Gen. xxiv. 67.

3 Comp. 2 Sam. xii. 3. The hind and the roe were objects of special delight ( Can. ii. 17; iii. 5.) and were treated with most tender endearment — a beautiful picture of the lively delight, which the wife naturally engages; relaxing in her society from severer duties, and taking the liveliest pleasure in her company. As Bishop Davenant beautifully observes — ‘Abroad he may consider himself as tossing in the waves, but at home with his wife, in repose, as in a desired haven.’ — In Col. iii. 19.

4 Eph. v. 25, 29. 5 Verses 9 — 11. 6 Verses 15 — 19. 7 Keb. xiii. 4. s Job xxxiv. 21, 22. Psalm xciv. 6 — 9. Jer. xiii. 25 — 27; xvi. 17. Hos. vii. 2,

See some striking thoughts in Mede’s Sermon on iv. 23.

a Psalm xiv. 1 — 3. 10 Job xxiv. 15. Isa. xxix. 15.

11 Psalm x. 4. 12 Ibid. cxxv. 3. Job xxxi. 4. Psalm cxxix. 1 — 4.

13 Chap. xvi. 2. 1 Sam. ii. 3. Dan. v. 27. Heb. iv. 13. & Ecc. zii. 14

is Mai. iii. 5. Eph. v. 5.

go with him. as cords to hold him for judgment. Does he think (hat he can give them up when he pleases? Repetition forms the habit. The habit becomes a ruling principle. ‘Every lust deals with him, as Delilah with Samson — not only robs him of his strength, but leaves him fast bound.’2 Shutting his eyes against the light — he dies without instruction* — the victim of his own wilful delusion — the greatness of his folly leading him astray — to perdition.4

But is there no remedy for this deadly curse? Thanks be to God, cleansing is provided for the impure ;5 “deliverance is proclaimed to the captive.”6 Blessed Saviour! cleanse the leper in thy precious fountain. Perform thy mighty commission. Set the captive free.