My son, attend unto my wisdom. Proverbs 5:1-14 Caution against sexual sins The scope of the passage is a warning against seventh-commandment sins, which youth is so prone to, the temptations to which are so violent, the examples of which are so many, and which, where admitted, are so destructive to all the seeds of virtue in the soul. We are warned — I. THAT WE DO NOT LISTEN TO THE CHARMS OF THIS SIN. 1. How fatal the consequences will be! The terrors of conscience. The torments of hell. 2. How false the charms are! The design is to keep them from choosing the path of life, to prevent them from being religious. In order thereunto, to keep them from pondering the path of life. II. THAT WE DO NOT APPROACH THE BORDERS OF SIN. The caution is very pressing. 1. We ought to have a very great dread and detestation of the sin. 2. We ought industriously to avoid everything that may be an occasion of this sin, or a step towards it. Those that would keep out of harm must keep out of harm's way. 3. We ought to be jealous over ourselves with a godly jealousy, and not be over-confident of the strength of our own resolutions. 4. Whatever has become a snare to us and an occasion of sin, we must part with at any cost ( Matthew 5:28-30 ). III. THE ARGUMENTS ENFORCING THE CAUTION. The mischiefs that attend this sin. 1. It blasts the reputation. 2. It wastes the time. 3. It ruins the estate. 4. It is destructive to the health. 5. It will fill the mind with terror, if ever conscience be awakened.Solomon here brings in the convinced sinner reproaching himself and aggravating his own folly. He will then most bitterly lament it. ( Matthew Henry . ) That thou mayest regard discretion. Proverbs 5:2 The wise man's intention in giving advice Francis Taylor, B. D. Some knit these words to what follows, and understand them thus: "I wish thee to hearken to wise counsels, that thy heart may not admit thoughts of the beauty of strumpets, nor thy lips talk of such wanton objects as they talk of, but that thy thoughts and words may be sober and honest." Others knit them to the words before, as if he had said, "Observe my wise precepts, that thou mayest well ruminate of them, and be so full of good thoughts in thy heart, that thou mayest be able to produce them copiously in thy words for the good of others, as I do for thine. But especially that thou mayest know what to think and speak of strumpets' fair words and alluring carriage." I. A READINESS TO ATTEND WILL BRING A STORE OF KNOWLEDGE. II. LET US GET READY EARS AND HEARTS TO GET KNOWLEDGE. III. GOOD THINGS HEARD MUST BE SERIOUSLY THOUGHT ON, THEN AND AFTER. IV. WE MUST LABOUR TO KNOW SO AS NOT ONLY TO UNDERSTAND, BUT ALSO TO UTTER WHAT WE KNOW IN FIT WORDS. That we may profit others. ( Francis Taylor, B. D. ) For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb. Proverbs 5:3-5 A strange woman Anon. One outside of the true family bonds and relationships. This description has been regarded by expositors as having a double sense. 1. It is a portrait of a harlot, especially one of foreign extraction. 2. It is a representation of the allurements of unsound doctrine and corrupt worship. I. WE HAVE HERE A DESCRIPTION OF THE STRANGE WOMAN. 1. Her vile, unclean, flattering, enticing speech. 2. Her fate: her end bitter, physical suffering, mental anguish, spiritual distress. II. A WORD TO HER. 1. You are somebody's child; think of the old time, etc. 2. You are ruining soul and body. 3. Ruining others as well. 4. The woman that was a sinner found mercy, and there is mercy for you. ( Anon. ) Evil companionship J. Hamilton, D. D. It would not be complaisance, but cowardice — it would be a sinful softness, which allowed affinity in taste to imperil your faith or your virtue. It would be the same sort of courtesy which in the equatorial forest, for the sake of its beautiful leaf, lets the liana with its strangling arms run up the plantain or the orange, and pays the forfeit in blasted boughs and total ruin. It would be the same sort of courtesy which, for fear of appearing rude and inhospitable, took into dock an infested vessel, or welcomed, not as a patient, but a guest, the plague-stricken stranger. ( J. Hamilton, D. D. ) The consequences of profligacy T. Binney. This chapter consists of caution and warning against licentiousness — the lawless and irregular indulgence of the passions — "Youthful lusts that war against the soul." Inhumanity is the union of two opposite natures — the animal with the impulses and appetites of the brute, the spiritual with Godlike aspirations and capacities of intelligence and religion. Whatever may be the aspirations of the soul, we find there is an animal nature as really and truly "us" as the spiritual itself. In man the conjugal relation is associated with all pure ideas, and is the source and fountain of the purest joy; the family circle is the nursing-mother of all virtue. Licentiousness would subvert all these connections. The Jewish law was so framed as not to suffer any of the daughters of Israel to sink into harlotry; the text speaks of "a strange woman," because such were usually persons from the surrounding nations. 1. There is nothing so expensive as sin. How many constitutions, how many fortunes have been blasted and wasted through early subjugation to lust! 2. God urges obedience to His laws by the happiness, purity, and beauty of a well-ordered, wise, and prudent conjugal connection. The young man is surrounded by God's omniscience. If he does not ponder his ways, God will. Iniquity, and especially sins of this sort, tend to gain a fixed habit. There is nothing so utterly repulsive as the picture of one who has grown old in habits of grossness. ( T. Binney. ) Her steps take hold on hell A beautiful hell John Robertson. One memorable night, a young lad and an old Scotchman being in Paris together, found themselves in front of one of the dens of infamy; the fragrance of the spices of Araby seemed to float in the air, and the sound of music and dancing broke upon the ear. The glitter and dazzle of fairyland was at the door; and the Scotch boy said, "What is that?" The body of the friend to whom he spoke now moulders in the dust; the voice that answered is now singing praises to God on high; but the hand of that Scotchman came like a vice to the wrist of the lad who was with him, and the voice hardened to a tone that he never forgot, as he said, "Man, that is hell!" "What!" It was a new idea to the country lad. Hell with an entrance like that!— with all the colours of the rainbow; with all the flowers and beauty, and the witching scenery and attractions! I thought hell was ugly; I thought I would get the belch of sulphur at the pit's mouth; I thought harpies on infernal wing would be hovering above the pit: but here like this? Yes, I saw above the gate — and I knew French enough to know what it meant — "Nothing to pay." That was on the gate; but, though there be nothing to pay to get in, what have you to pay to get out? That is the question. Character blasted! soul lost! Mind that. Just examine your ways. Do not be taken in by the flowers and music, and the beautiful path that is at your feet this afternoon. ( John Robertson. ) Her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them. Proverbs 5:6 The movable ways of the tempter G. Lawson, D. D. The wiseman lets us know how foolish it is for men to flatter themselves with the hope that they shall by and by be truly disposed and enabled to repent of their sin. The temptress can form her mode of behaviour into a hundred shapes to entangle the heart of the lover. She spreads a thousand snares, and if you escape one of them, you will find yourself held fast by another. She knows well how to suit her words and behaviour to your present humour, to lull conscience asleep, and to spread before your eyes such a mist as shall prevent you from being able to descry the paths of life. If you ever think of the danger of your course, and feel the necessity of changing it, she will urge you to spend a little time longer in the pleasures of sin. If her solicitations prevail, if you linger within the precincts of guilt, your resolutions are weakened, and your passions gain new strength. What is the awful result? The devil obtains more influence; conscience, forcibly repressed, ceases to reclaim with so loud a voice; God gives you up to the lusts of your own heart, and leaves you to choose your own delusions. Attend, then, to the wisest of men, who instructs you to keep free of these dangerous temptations. ( G. Lawson, D. D. ) Movableness William Birch. The text refers to a sinful character who endeavours to keep her companion in vice by her movable ways. Few can say with Paul, "None of these things move me." We are liable to be acted upon by influences within and without us. It is a grave weakness to be easily movable to bad and faulty ways. Movableness is the prevalent fault of probably every one of us. How easily we are moved to speak in haste. How difficult to keep our eye from being moved to look on evil. We are urged to fix our affections on things above, but who can do this in his own strength? Are we not movable in our friendships? Perhaps movable Christians love only themselves; and if this be so, it needs but a short time and a slight ruffle against their feathers to move them. Some are easily movable from their work for God and for humanity. Some, perhaps all of us, at times, are movable in our faith. Do not allow yourself to be moved from trusting in the love of Jesus, and never be ashamed of being His faithful disciple. Some are moved from the comfort of prayer. ( William Birch. ) Lest thou give thine honour unto others. Proverbs 5:9 A man's honour sunk in sensuality G. Lawson, D.D. A good name is better than precious ointment, but of a good name this abominable sin is the ruin. The credit of David and of Solomon was greatly sunk by it. By it has the honour of thousands been irretrievably lost. Life is a great blessing, and may be regarded as the foundation of every earthly blessing. But unclean persons part with everything that renders life worthy of the name, and in a literal sense, they often give their years unto the cruel. Their lives are lost in the pursuit of this sin by the just judgment of God, by its native consequences, or by the accidents to which it exposes those who practise it. And for what are these years given away? Did men generously part with their lives in the defence of their country, or for the sake of a generous friend, the loss would be amply compensated by honour, and by the pleasure of a good conscience. But how infatuated are they who give their years unto the cruel, who conceal a selfish and malignant heart under the mask of love! All unlawful love is hatred, and all tempters to it are cruel enemies to our happiness. Shall we then gratify inhuman enemies, at the expense of honour and life and everything dear to us? These false friends and malicious enemies rob you of your honour and life, with as much eagerness as if they could enjoy these precious blessings of which you are deprived. ( G. Lawson, D.D. ) And thou mourn at the last. Proverbs 5:11 Dying regrets William Jay. Religion has one undeniable advantage to recommend it — whatever it calls us to sacrifice or to suffer, it always ends well. On the other hand, sin has one undeniable evil to excite our aversion and horror — whatever sensual pleasures and imaginary profit attend its course, it always ends awfully. I. THE SUBJECT OF THESE REGRETS. It is a man who has disregarded through life the means employed to preserve or reclaim him. Man's instructors and reprovers may be ranked in six classes. 1. Your connections in life. Father, mother, friend, etc. 2. The Scriptures. 3. Ministers. 4. Conscience. 5. Irrational creatures. 6. The dispensations of Providence. II. THE PERIOD OF THESE REGRETS. It is a dying hour. 1. Such a period is unavoidable. 2. It cannot be far off. 3. It may be very near. 4. It is sometimes prematurely brought on by sin. Such a period, if it be not prematurely produced by irreligion, is always embittered by it. III. THE NATURE OF THESE REGRETS. This mourning has two attributes to distinguish it. 1. It is dreadful. A dying hour has been called an honest hour. 2. It is useless. To the individuals themselves, whatever it may be to others.Lessons: 1. How good is God! 2. How fallen is man! 3. How important is serious thought! ( William Jay. ) At the last Last things The wise man saw the young and simple straying into the house of the strange woman. It was not what it seemed to be. Could he shed a revealing light upon it? He saw only one lamp suitable to his purpose; it was named "At the last." He held this up, and the young man's delusion was dispelled. He saw in its light the awful consequences of self-indulgence and sin. If this lamp is useful in this one case, it may be useful in others. I can only compare my text in its matchless power to Ithuriel's spear, with which, according to Milton , he touched the toad, and straightway Satan appeared in his true colours. This lamp has four sides to it. I. DEATH IS AT THE LAST. In some sense it is the last of this mortal life; it is the last of this period of trial here below; it is the last of the day of grace; it is the last of the day of mortal sin. In the light of death look upon mortal sins. The greatest of human actions will appear to be insignificant when we come to die. Look at our selfish actions in this light. How will sin then appear? II. JUDGMENT IS AT THE LAST. When we die, we die not. When a man dieth shall he live again? Ay, that he shall — for his spirit dieth never. After death comes the judgment. Look at the past, the present, the future, in the light of that judgment. III. HEAVEN IS AT THE LAST. Look on all our actions in the light of heaven. IV. HELL IS AT THE LAST. See things in that dread and dismal light, the glare of the fiery abyss. How will self-indulgence, unbelief, procrastination look in that light? ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) When thy flesh and thy body are consumed Sin's recompense H. W. Beecher. If all men believed at the beginning of their courses of life what they find at the end, there would be far less power in temptation, and many would turn aside from those paths which bring them to ruin; but it is one of the peculiarities of youth that, while it has unbounded faith in certain directions, it seldom has faith in regard to mischiefs which befall disobedience. There are many reasons which conspire to make men either over-confident in the beginnings of life, or even audacious. 1. The inexperience and thoughtlessness which belong to the young. Thousands there are who have taken no pains in the formation of their consciences. 2. There is a most defiant spirit in the young. 3. There is a hopefulness which frequently goes beyond all bounds. 4. There are reactions from an infelicitous way of teaching which tend to produce presumption in the young. Especially the exaggeration and indiscriminate way in which sin is often held forth. Conventional sins are held up before men as representing sinning, until there comes up a scepticism of the whole doctrine and the whole sad and melancholy experience of sinning. 5. Men are made presumptuous in sinning because they see wicked men prospering. They regard that as the refutation of half the preaching, and of almost all the advice they hear. There is a law of everlasting rectitude. There are conditions on which men's bodies will serve them happily, and there are conditions on which men's souls will serve them happily. But if a man violate these conditions, no matter how secretly, no matter how little, just as sure as there is a God in heaven, he must suffer the penalty. Every one of the wrongs which a man commits against his own soul will find him out, and administer its own penalty. There comes a time when men who are not actually worn out by excess of transgression do regain, to some extent, their moral sense. After the period of infatuation there comes, very frequently, a period of retrospection. It is alluded to in the passage now before us. The resurrection of moral sensibility comes through a variety of agencies — failure, shame, affliction, etc. Sometimes it comes too late. I beseech you, young men, believe in virtue; believe in truth; believe in honesty and fidelity; believe in honour; believe in God; believe in God's law and in God's providence. Put your trust in God, and in the faith of God, and not in the seeming of deceitful and apparently prosperous men. Whatever else you get, have peace, day by day, with your own conscience. Whoever else you offend, do not offend your God. Do what is right, and then fear no man. ( H. W. Beecher. ) The doom of the libertine Anon. I. WASTE OF WEALTH. It is spent to garnish the house of sin; it is so much taken from home-scenes, and legitimate pleasures and benevolence. II. WASTE OF HEALTH. Note the corruption of licentious nations, as the Turks, etc. III. WASTE OF TEARS. Mourning at the last is too late for proving the repentance to be genuine. ( Anon. ) A dissolute young man D. Thomas, D. D. I. A DISSOLUTE YOUNG MAN WITH A DECAYING BODY. The wise man foresaw the wretched physical condition to which the dissolute life of the young man whom he calls his son would lead. 1. It is a sad sight to see a young man decay at all. 2. It is more sad when the physical decay has been produced by a dissolute life. II. A DISSOLUTE YOUNG MAN WITH AN ACTIVE MEMORY. 1. He remembers the many privileges he has abused. 2. He remembers the sinful scenes of his life. III. A DISSOLUTE YOUNG MAN WITH A TORTURING CONSCIENCE. 1. An agonising sense of self-blamefulness. Conscience casts all excuses to the winds; it fastens the crime home on the individual himself. 2. An agonising sense of self-ruin. The moral wail here breathes the feeling of destruction. ( D. Thomas, D. D. ) The woes of wantonness Francis Taylor, B. D. I. LAMENTATION FOLLOWS WANTONNESS. 1. When men find their goods gone and their bodies corrupted. 2. When they see all their opportunities of doing good to soul and body gone. 3. They feel God's hand heavy on them, as being on the rack of an evil conscience. II. THE END OF WANTON COURSES IS SORROWFUL. 1. Because of pleasures past. 2. Because of present sorrows. 3. Because of pursuing pain that is gotten by disease. 4. Because of public shame. III. THE BODY ITSELF IS CONSUMED BY WANTONNESS. Because it consumes the radical humour of the body. ( Francis Taylor, B. D. ) And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof. Proverbs 5:12 Conscience as an instrument of punishment Freeborn C. Hibbard, M.A. These are supposed to be the words of a young man whose dissolute life had induced disease and want and infamy. He stands out upon the dim verge of life, a beacon light to all who live without God. Remorse, like a fierce vulture, had clutched upon his soul, and despair had cast the shadows of a cheerless night around him. It was from his moral reflections that his keenest anguish arose. I. THE NATURAL AUTHORITY OF CONSCIENCE, AND ITS CONSEQUENT POWER TO INFLICT PUNISHMENT. 1. If we would appreciate the capacity of the soul to suffer through the morbid action of the moral feelings, we must first understand its internal structure, its several faculties and powers. Man is endowed with various powers of reason, of sensibility, and of action. Of the principles of action, some are mechanical, as instinct and habit; some are animal, as the appetites and some of the desires and affections; and others rational, arising from a knowledge of his relations to other beings, and from a foresight of the proper consequences of his acts. He thus combines in his nature those laws which govern the brute creation with those which declare him to be made in the "image of God," and suit him to a state of moral discipline. With this complex nature he is endowed with the power of self-government, which implies the due exercise of all the properties of his being, under the direction and control of one supreme authority. This authority is conscience, which God has enthroned in the human breast with all the attributes of sovereignty. The brute animal rushes on to the gratification of its desires without a thought beyond the immediate object in pursuit. Man brings under his eye the just relations of universal being, chooses and pursues. 2. Consider what a monitor conscience is. It teaches us to perform in good faith, as being right, that which we do; but it does not of itself supply an independent rule of right. 3. The government of conscience is not like that of the animal appetites. Its voice is gentle and persuasive, often drowned in the clamour of passion, or unheeded in the eager pursuit of forbidden pleasure. 4. If conscience is supreme, according to the original constitution of our nature, then, whatever may be the occasional, temporary abuse it may receive from the usurpation of the animal propensities, it must upon the whole, and taking all the range of our existence into the account, possess an ascendant power over man. 5. Go where you will, the natural dread of an accusing conscience will be found to have been the rod of terror to the guilty of all ages. No man will long abide the direct action of self-reproach. The restlessness of the soul, under the action of self-reproach, has displayed itself upon a wide scale in the cumbrous and often sanguinary superstitions of the heathen. We have seen the distress and anguish which a sense of guilt produces in the breast of the awakened sinner. II. THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE PUNITIVE ACTION OF CONSCIENCE. In relation to God, a consciousness of guilt is accompanied — 1. With a sense of the loss of Divine favour and fellowship. 2. A sense of guilt is accompanied with an apprehension of punishment. In the breast of every man there exists a belief that this world is under a providential government, from the just awards of which he has something to hope or to fear in a future state of being. In relation to other moral beings, a sense of guilt is accompanied with —(1) A loss of the confidence and esteem of the holy.(2) A consciousness of guilt awakens remorse, a complex emotion, consisting of simple regret and moral disapprobation of one's self; in other words, it is moral regret.Practical considerations: 1. How delusive is that hope of future happiness which, though it is built upon the natural goodness of God, manifested through a Mediator, makes no necessary reckoning of a holy life. It is not in the province of Omnipotence to produce moral happiness in a polluted soul. 2. We here perceive the reasonableness as well as certainty of future punishment. ( Freeborn C. Hibbard, M.A. ) Woman's lamentation over a wasted life T. De Witt Talmage. Women outnumber men in the family, in the Church, in the State, A God-loving, God-fearing womanhood will make a God-loving, God-fearing nationality. 1. A young woman who omits her opportunity of making home happy. 2. A young woman who spends her whole life, or wastes her young womanhood, in selfish display. 3. A young woman who wastes her opportunity of doing good. 4. A young woman who loses her opportunity of personal salvation. Opportunity gone, is gone for ever. Privileges wasted, wasted for ever. The soul lost, lost for ever. ( T. De Witt Talmage. ) Self-condemnations Francis Taylor, B.D. I. SENSUALISTS WILL BE SELF-CONDEMNED IN THE END. 1. Because of the issue of sin in general, which must come to a self-condemnation. 2. Because of the strength of their sorrow arising out of their troubles. 3. Because of the force of truth, which will overcome all in the end. 4. Because of the power of conscience. II. THAT WHICH LIES SOREST UPON THE SPIRITS OF GROSS SINNERS IN THE END IS, SLIGHTING INSTRUCTION. 1. Because it is a great mercy for God to afford teachers. 2. Because not hearkening to instruction is the way to fall into sin, and not hearkening to reproof the way to abide in it. III. WICKED MEN HEARTILY HATE INSTRUCTION AND SLIGHT REPROOF. 1. Because they are contrary to their corrupt affections and wicked lusts. 2. It appears that they heartily hate them by the malice they bear to the reprovers of their sins, which is vehement and deadly. Their lusts are so strong on them that they hate and slight all reproofs. ( Francis Taylor, B.D. ) And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers. Proverbs 5:13 Consequences of disobedience The Evangelist. Can any state be more distressing than that of an individual who has enjoyed the best opportunities of securing his own happiness and promoting that of others, totally failing in both these, and becoming the subject of bitter self-reproach? I. THERE IS THE ADMISSION OF HAVING HAD THE GREAT ADVANTAGE OF TEACHERS. There are scarcely any but have had some very considerable advantages and means of religious instruction. They involve you all in a serious responsibility to God and your own conscience. 1. The best, purest, most commanding instruction in the Bible. 2. The living voice of teachers, either parents or ministers, or kind friends in schools. 3. The Spirit of God unfolding the truth to your understanding and conscience; striving with your heart, and inwardly calling you to seek those things which belong to your peace. II. THERE IS AN IMPLIED CONNECTION BETWEEN INSTRUCTION AND OBEDIENCE. The text admits the obligation resulting from such advantages. "I ought to have obeyed, but I have not." 1. You are bound to obey the good instruction you have received, because it is clearly the will of God, the Being who is above all, and who holds you amenable at His tribunal. 2. By the tender and unspeakable love of the Saviour, Jesus Christ, who came forth from His Father, and became the Redeemer of men by the sacrifice of Himself. 3. By a regard to your own highest interests. Obeying the Divine precepts is the only way to secure your own peace of mind, your joy through life, your hope in death, and your immortal felicity after death. 4. By a regard to the interests of others to whom you may be related in this life. You have social relations, duties, and obligations which you ought to regard, and cannot neglect without great criminality. You ought to become yourselves, and endeavour to make them, such as God would have us all to be. 5. By the obligation which arises from your final accountableness at the bar of judgment. III. THERE IS A CONFESSION THAT INSTRUCTION HAD NOT BEEN OBEYED. This text does not express the case of those who have only partially, or in some respects, failed of obedience, but have in the main been mindful of the instruction they have received. It is applied to those who have failed altogether, and in the general habits of their mind and life have disregarded the great and holy principles inculcated upon them in early life. Some of the causes of this failure are — 1. There is in our own hearts a disinclination to serve God, and an aversion to the Divine precepts. 2. There are innumerable and incessant temptations to forsake the guide of our youth. 3. There will be a direct and powerful influence of the worst kind exerted over those who give themselves to evil companions. IV. THERE IS AN EXPRESSION OF PENITENTIAL REGRET FOR DISOBEDIENCE. The text seems to be the language of remorse. 1. A perception that our misery has resulted from wilful disobedience, not from ignorance. 2. The feeling that this disobedience has been maintained against light and knowledge. 3. The consciousness that you once possessed all the means necessary to promote your happiness and secure your salvation. ( The Evangelist. ) Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Proverbs 5:15 Spiritual resources Homilist. I. MAN HAS INDEPENDENT SPIRITUAL RESOURCES. 1. He has independent sources of thought. Every sane man can and does think for himself. 2. He has independent sources of experience. No two have exactly the same experience. 3. He has independent powers of usefulness. Every man has a power to do some thing which no other can. II. MAN IS BOUND TO USE THESE RESOURCES. "Drink waters out of thine own cistern." Do not live on others' self-drawing. 1. Honours our own nature. 2. Increases our own resources. 3. Contributes to the good of the universe. The man who gives only what he has borrowed from others adds nothing to the common stock. The subject —(1) Indicates the kind of service which one man can spiritually render another.(2) Suggests an effective method to sap the foundation of all arrogant assumptions. Let every man become self-helpful, and the influence of those who arrogate a lordship over the faith of others will soon die out.(3) Presents a motive for thankfully adoring the great Creator for the spiritual constitution He has given us. We have resources, not of course independent of "Him," the primal fount of all power, but independent of all creatures. ( Homilist. ) Family joys W. Arnot, D. D. A painter lays down a dark ground to lean his picture on, and thereby bring its beauty out. Such is the method adopted in this portion of the Word. The pure delights of the family are about to be represented in the sweetest colours that nature yields — wedded love mirrored in running waters; surely we have apples of gold in pictures of silver here. And in all the earlier part of the chapter the Spirit has stained the canvas deep with Satan's dark antithesis to the holy appointment of God. The Lord condescends to bring His own institute forward in rivalry with the deceitful pleasures of sin. How beautiful and how true the imagery in which our lesson is unfolded! Pleasures such as God gives to His creatures, and such as His creatures, with advantage to all their interests can enjoy — pleasures that are consistent with holiness and heaven, are compared to a stream of pure running water. And specifically the joys of the family are "running waters out of thine own well." This well is not exposed to every passenger. It springs within, and has a fence around it. We should make much of the family and all that belongs to it. All its accessories are the Father's gift, and He expects us to observe and value them. But because the stream is so pure, a small bulk of foreign matter will sensibly tinge it. The unguarded word, neglected thoughtfulnesses, or slovenly and careless ways. But careful abstinence from evil is only one, and that the lower, side of the case. There must be spontaneous outgoing activity in this matter, like the springing of flowers, and the leaping of a stream from the fountain. All the allusions to this relation in Scripture imply an ardent, joyful love. Husband and wife, if they are skilful to take advantage of their privileges, may, by sharing, somewhat diminish their cares, and fully double their joys. But we must take care lest the enjoyments of home become a snare. God is not pleased with indolence or selfishness. If the family is well ordered, ourselves will get the chief benefit, but we should let others share it. ( W. Arnot, D. D. ) Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad. Proverbs 5:16 The children of marriage Francis Taylor, B. D. Streams of children. Unlawful intercourse is often barren. I. CHILDREN OF LAWFUL MARRIAGE ARE LIKE RIVERS. 1. In plenty. God's blessing goes with marriage. 2. In purity. Pure fountains bring forth pure streams. 3. In spreading abroad. 4. In profitableness. II. CHILDREN ARE A GREAT PART OF THE COMFORTS OF MARRIAGE. 1. Because they are a part of both their parents. 2. Because they are a firm bond of love, peace, and reconciliation to both their parents. III. PARENTS NEED NOT BE ASHAMED OF THEIR CHILDREN. 1. Because they come into the world God's way, and that brings no shame with it. 2. Because there is hope that they will be good. 3. Being well-bred, they may come to preferment in the State. 4. They are likely to have honourable posterity. ( Francis Taylor, B. D. ) Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee. Proverbs 5:17 Strangers with thee Episcopal Recorder. Strangers with thee in life! Those united in Christ are those only who are united in truth. Strangers with thee in death! Alone wilt thou descend the banks of that dark river. For be assured the hosts of darkness and sin flee terror-stricken from its waters. The Lord and the Church are with them; but "strangers with thee." Strangers with thee in eternity! There the little finesses and shams by which rivalry and hatred are concealed in this life will be torn away, and the naked energies of sin will stand isolated and single in their intense and repulsive malignity. "Strangers with thee." ( Episcopal Recorder. ) For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord. Proverbs 5:21 The meth

Benson Commentary Proverbs 5:1 My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding: Proverbs 5:1-2 . My son, attend unto my wisdom — “There being nothing,” says Bishop Patrick, “to which youth is so prone as to give up themselves to satisfy their fleshly desires, and nothing proving so pernicious to them; the wise man gives a new caution against those impure lusts which he had taken notice of before: ( Proverbs 2:16-19 ,) as great obstructions to wisdom; and, with repeated entreaties, begs attention to so weighty an argument: which here he prosecutes more largely, and presses not only with singular evidence, but with powerful reasons.” That thou mayest regard, or keep, as ???? signifies, that is, hold fast, as it is in the next clause, discretion — Or wisdom for the conduct of thy life, as this word is used, chap. 1:4, and in other parts of this book. And that thy lips may keep knowledge — That, by wise and pious discourses, thou mayest preserve and improve thy wisdom, for thine own good, and that of others. Proverbs 5:2 That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge. Proverbs 5:3 For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: Proverbs 5:3-6 . For the lips of a strange woman, &c. — It concerns thee to get and to use discretion, that thou mayest be able to resist those manifold temptations to which thou art exposed; drop as a honeycomb — Her words and discourses are sweet, pleasing, and prevalent. But her end is bitter as wormwood — Her design, and the effect of that lewdness to which she entices men, are the sinner’s destruction. So that the beginning of this intercourse is not so sweet as the conclusion is bitter: after a short pleasure follows long pain, by the impairing men’s health, strength, estates, and credit, which they cannot reflect upon without trouble and vexation, remorse of conscience, and anguish of spirit, for, like a sword that cuts on both sides, she wounds both mind and body. Her feet — Her course, or manner of life, go down to death — Lead those that follow her to an untimely, shameful, and miserable end. Her steps take hold on hell — To have any, the least, converse with her, is to approach to certain, inevitable destruction. Lest thou shouldest ponder — Though thou mayest think to make a retreat in time: thou wilt be deceived, she having more arts than thou canst ever know, (winding and turning herself a thousand ways,) to keep thee from so much as deliberating about thy return to a virtuous course of life. Proverbs 5:4 But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. Proverbs 5:5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. Proverbs 5:6 Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them . Proverbs 5:7 Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. Proverbs 5:8 Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: Proverbs 5:8-14 . Come not nigh the door of her house — Lest thine eyes affect thy heart, and her allurements prevail over thee. Lest thou give thine honour — Thy dignity and reputation, the strength and vigour of thy body and mind; unto others — Unto whores, and their base attendants; and thy years — The flower of thine age, and thy precious time, unto the cruel — To the harlot, who, though she pretends love, yet, in truth, is one of the most cruel creatures in the world, wasting thy estate and body, without the least pity, and destroying thy soul for ever. Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth — Not only the strange women themselves, but others who are in league with them; and thy labours — Wealth gotten by thy labours; in the house of a stranger — Of a strange family, whose house and table are furnished with the fruit of thy care and labours. And thou mourn at the last — Bitterly bewail thy madness and misery, when it is too late; when thy flesh and thy body, or even thy body, are consumed — By those manifold diseases which the indulgence of fleshly lusts bring upon the body; And say, How have I hated instruction! — How stupidly foolish have I been in not considering all this sooner! How senselessly bent upon my own ruin! And my heart despised reproof — I am amazed to think how I hated the cautions that were given me to avoid such ways, and the just reproofs I received for inclining to them. And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers — Of my parents, friends, and God’s ministers, who informed me of my danger, and faithfully and seasonably warned me of those mischiefs and miseries in which I am now involved. I was almost in all evil — I gave myself up to follow my lusts, which, in a short time, engaged me in almost every kind of wickedness, from which the reverence of no persons could restrain me, not even a regard to the congregation and assembly of God’s people. Proverbs 5:9 Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel: Proverbs 5:10 Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; Proverbs 5:11 And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, Proverbs 5:12 And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; Proverbs 5:13 And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me! Proverbs 5:14 I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly. Proverbs 5:15 Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Proverbs 5:15 . Drink waters out of thine own cistern — “The allegory here begun is carried on through several verses. It has been differently understood; but the interpretation which seems most generally followed, is that of those who conceive that the wise man here subjoins a commendation of matrimony, and the chaste preservation of the marriage- bed, for the propagation of a legitimate offspring, to his dehortation from illegitimate embraces, and stolen waters; and Schultens observes, that no figure is more elegant or more common among the easterns than this.” — Dodd. Bishop Patrick’s paraphrase on the verse is, “Marry; and in a wife of thy own, enjoy the pleasures thou desirest, and be content with them alone; innocent, chaste, and pure pleasures; as much different from the other, as the clear waters of a wholesome fountain are from those of a dirty lake or puddle.” Proverbs 5:16 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Proverbs 5:16-17 . Let thy fountains — Rather, thy streams, as Dr. Waterland renders the word, that is, thy children, proceeding from thy wife, called thy fountain, Proverbs 5:18 , and from thyself; be dispersed abroad — They shall be multiplied, and in due time appear abroad in the world, to thy comfort and honour, and for the good of others; whereas harlots are commonly barren, and men are ashamed to own the children of whoredom. Let them be only thine own — “Children that acknowledge no other father, because they spring from one whom thou enjoyest (like a fountain in thy own ground) thyself alone: she being taught, by thy confining thyself to her, never to admit any stranger to thy bed.” — Bishop Patrick. Proverbs 5:17 Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee. Proverbs 5:18 Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Proverbs 5:18 . Let thy fountain be blessed — Thy wife, as the next clause explains it, shall be blessed with children; or rather, she shall be a blessing and a comfort to thee, as it follows, and not a curse and snare, as a harlot would be. And rejoice, &c. — Seek not to harlots for that comfort and delight which God allows thee to take in thy wife. So here he explains the foregoing metaphor, and applies it to its present design; with the wife of thy youth — Whom thou didst marry in thy youthful days, with whom, therefore, in all reason and justice, thou oughtest still to satisfy thyself, even when she is old. Proverbs 5:19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. Proverbs 5:19 . Let her be as the loving hind — Hebrew, as the hind of loves; as amiable and delightful as the hinds are to princes and great men, who used to make them tame and familiar, and to take great delight in them, as has been observed by many writers. “The wise man,” says Bishop Patrick, “describes allegorically the felicities of the nuptial state, first under the comparison of a domestic fountain, where a man may quench his natural thirst, and from whence streams, that is, children, may be derived, to serve the public good; and, secondly, under the comparisons, of a young hind and pleasant roe, which naturalists have observed to be very fond creatures, which were usually kept by the greatest persons in their palaces, who diverted themselves with them, and adorned them with chains and garlands.” Let her breasts — Rather, her loves, as Houbigant renders ???? , at all times, in all ages and conditions; not only love her when she is young and beautiful, but when she is old, or even deformed; and be thou always ravished with her love — Love her fervently. It is a hyperbolical expression. Proverbs 5:20 And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? Proverbs 5:20-21 . And why wilt thou be ravished with a strange woman? — Consider a little, and deny, if thou canst, that it is an unaccountable folly to seek that satisfaction and comfort in a vile harlot, which thou mayest enjoy more pleasantly, securely, and constantly, as well as more innocently, in a pious wife of thine own people. For the ways of man are before the Lord — “From whom no one can hide his most private actions, but he plainly sees and weighs all that a person doth, wheresoever he be; and will exactly proportion rewards and punishments according as he behaves himself.” Proverbs 5:21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings. Proverbs 5:22 His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. Proverbs 5:22-23 . His own iniquities shall take the wicked — “Let him not think to escape, because he is so cunning that nobody observes him, or so powerful that no one can call him to an account; for his own manifold iniquities shall arrest and apprehend him.” And he shall be holden with the cords of his sins — “He shall need no other chains to bind, and hold him fast, to answer for them to God.” — Bishop Patrick. He shall die without instruction — Because he neglected instruction; or, as ???? ???? , may be rendered, without correction, or amendment. He shall die in his sins, and not repent of them, as he designed and hoped to do, before his death. And in the greatness of his folly — Through his stupendous folly, whereby he cheated himself with hopes of repentance or impunity, and exposed himself to endless torments for the momentary pleasures of gratifying sinful lusts; he shall go astray — From God, and from the way of life and eternal salvation. Proverbs 5:23 He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Proverbs 5:1 My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding: CHAPTER 6 THE WAYS AND ISSUES OF SIN "His own iniquities shall take the wicked, And he shall be holden with the cords of his sin. He shall die for lack of instruction; And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray." Proverbs 5:22-23 IT is the task of Wisdom, or, as we should say, of the Christian teacher, -and a most distasteful task it is, -to lay bare with an unsparing hand (1) the fascinations of sin, and (2) the deadly entanglements in which the sinner involves himself, - "there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." { Proverbs 14:12 } It would be pleasanter, no doubt, to avoid the subject, or at least to be content with a general caution and a general denunciation; one is tempted to take refuge in the opinion that to mention evils of a certain kind with any particularity is likely to suggest rather than to suppress, to aggravate rather than to lessen, them. But Wisdom is not afraid of plain speaking; she sees that shame is the first result of the Fall, and behind the modest veil of shame the devil works bravely. There is a frankness and a fullness in the delineations of this chapter and of chapter seven which modern taste would condemn; but the motive cannot be mistaken. Holiness describes the ways of sin in detail to create a horror and a hatred of them; she describes exactly what is within the tempting doors, -all the glamour, all the softness, all the luxury, all the unhallowed raptures, -and shows distinctly how these chambers are on the incline of death, in order that curiosity, the mother of prurience, may be stifled, and the unwary may be content to remove his way far from the temptress, and to come not nigh the door of her house. { Proverbs 5:8 } But this, it may be said, is the plea urged by a certain school of modern Realism in Art. Let us depict-such is the argument-in all its hideous literalness the sinful life, and leave it to work its own impressions, and to act as a warning to those who are entering on the seductive but dangerous ways. From this principle-so it may be said-has sprung the school of writers at whose head is M. Zola. Yes, but to counteract vice by depicting it is so hazardous a venture that none can do it successfully who is not fortified in virtue himself, and constantly led, directed, and restrained by the Holy Spirit of God. Just in this point lies the great difference between the realism of the Bible and the realism of the French novel. In the first the didactic purpose is at once declared, and the writer moves with swift precision through the fascinating scene, to lift the curtain and show death beyond; in the last the motive is left doubtful, and the writer moves slowly, observantly, even gloatingly, through the abomination and the filth, without any clear conception of the Divine Eye which watches, or the Divine Voice which condemns. There is a corresponding difference in the effects of the two. Few men could study these chapters in the book of Proverbs without experiencing a healthy revolt against the iniquity which is unveiled; while few men can read the works of modern realism without contracting a certain contamination, without a dimming of the moral sense and a weakening of the purer impulses. We need not then complain that the powers of imaginative description are summoned to heighten the picture of the temptation, because the same powers are used with constraining effect to paint the results of yielding to it. We need not regret that the Temptress, Mistress Folly, as she is called, is allowed to utter all her blandishments in full, to weave her spells before our eyes, because the voice of Wisdom is in this way made more impressive and convincing. Pulpit invectives against sin often lose half their terrible cogency because we are too prudish to describe the sins which we denounce. I. The glamours of sin and the safeguard against them.- There is no sin which affords so vivid an example of seductive attraction at the beginning, and of hopeless misery at the end as that of unlawful love. The illustration which we generally prefer, that drawn from the abuse of alcoholic drinks, occurs later on in the book, at Proverbs 23:31-32 ; but it is not so effectual for the purpose, and we may be thankful that the Divine Wisdom is not checked in its choice of matter by our present-day notions of propriety. There are two elements in the temptation: there is the smooth and flattering speech, the outpouring of compliment and pretended affection expressed in Proverbs 7:15 , the subtle and inflaming suggestion that "stolen waters are sweet"; { Proverbs 9:17 } and there is the beauty of form enhanced by artful painting of the eyelids, { Proverbs 6:25 } and by all those gratifications of the senses which melt the manhood and undermine the resisting power of the victim. { Proverbs 7:16-17 } In our own time we should have to add still further elements of temptation, -sophistical arguments and oracular utterances of a false science, which encourages men to do for health what appetite bids them do for pleasure. After all, this is but a type of all temptations to sin. There are weak points in every character; there are places in every life where the descent is singularly easy. A siren voice waylays us with soft words and insinuating arguments; gentle arms are thrown around us, and dazzling visions occupy our eyes; our conscience seems to fade away in a mist of excited feeling; there is a sort of twilight in which shapes are uncertain, and the imagination works mightily with the obscure presentations of the senses. We are taken unawares; the weak point happens to be unguarded; the fatal bypath with its smooth descent is, as it were, sprung upon us. Now the safeguard against the specific sin before us is presented in a true and whole-hearted marriage. { Proverbs 5:15-19 } And the safeguard against all sin is equally to be found in the complete and constant preoccupation of the soul with the Divine Love. The author is very far from indulging in allegory, -his thoughts are occupied with a very definite and concrete evil, and a very definite and concrete remedy; but instinctively the Christian ear detects a wider application, and the Christian heart turns to that strange and exigent demand made by its Lord, to hate father and mother, and even all human ties, in order to concentrate on Him an exclusive love and devotion. It is our method to state a general truth and illustrate it with particular instances; it is the method of a more primitive wisdom to dwell upon a particular instance in such a way as to suggest a general truth. Catching, therefore, involuntarily the deeper meanings of such a thought, we notice that escape from the allurements of the strange woman is secured by the inward concentration of; a pure wedded love. In the permitted paths of connubial intimacy and tenderness are to be found raptures more sweet and abiding than those which are vainly promised by the ways of sin. "Here Love his golden shafts employs, here lights His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings, Reigns here and revels; not in the bought smile of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendeared." Forbidding to marry is a device of Satan; anything, which tends to degrade or to desecrate marriage bears on its face the mark of the Tempter. It is at our peril that we invade the holy mystery, or brush away from its precincts the radiant dews which reflect the light of God. Nay, even the jest and the playful teasing which the subject sometimes occasions are painfully inappropriate and even offensive. We do ill to smile at the mutual absorption and tender endearments of the young married people; we should do better to pray that their love might grow daily more absorbing and more tender. I would say to brides and bridegrooms: Magnify the meaning of this sacred union of yours; try to understand its Divine symbolism. Labor diligently to keep its mystical passion pure and ardent and strong. Remember that love needs earnest, humble, self-suppressing cultivation, and its bloom is at first easily worn off by negligence or laziness. Husbands, labor hard to make your assiduous and loving care more manifest to your wives as years go by. Wives, desire more to shine in the eyes of your husbands, and to retain their passionate and chivalrous admiration, than you did in the days of courtship. Where marriage is held honorable, -a sacrament of heavenly significance, -where it begins in a disinterested love, grows in educational discipline, and matures in a complete harmony, an absolute fusion of the wedded souls, you have at once the best security against many of the worst evils which desolate society, and the most exquisite type of the brightest and loveliest spiritual state which is promised to us in the world to come. Our sacred writings glorify marriage, finding in it more than any other wisdom or religion has found. The Bible, depicting the seductions and fascinations of sin, sets off against them the infinitely sweeter joys and the infinitely more binding fascinations of this condition which was created and appointed in the time of man’s innocence, and is still the readiest way of bringing back the Paradise which is lost. II. The binding results of sin.- It is interesting to compare with the teaching of this chapter the doctrine of Karma in that religion of Buddha which was already winning its victorious way in the far East at the time when these introductory chapters were written. The Buddha said in effect to his disciple, "You are in slavery to a tyrant set up by yourself. Your own deeds, words, and thoughts, in the former and present states of being, are your own avengers through a countless series of lives. If you have been a murderer, a thief, a liar, impure, a drunkard, you must pay the penalty in your next birth, either in one of the hells, or as an unclean animal, or as an evil spirit, or as a demon. You cannot escape, and I am powerless to set you free. Not in the heavens," so says the Dhammapada, "not in the midst of the sea, not if thou hidest thyself in the clefts of the mountains, wilt thou find a place where thou canst escape the force of thy own evil actions." "His own iniquities shall take the wicked, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sin." This terrible truth is illustrated with mournful emphasis in the sin of the flesh which has been occupying our attention, a sin which can only be described as "taking fire into the bosom or walking upon hot coals," with the inevitable result that the clothes are burnt and the feet are scorched. { Proverbs 6:27-28 } There are four miseries comparable to four strong cords which bind the unhappy transgressor. First of all, there is the shame. His honor is given to others, { Proverbs 5:9 } and his reproach shall not be wiped away. { Proverbs 6:33 } The jealous rage of the offended husband will accept no ransom, no expiation; { Proverbs 6:34-35 } with relentless cruelty the avenger will expose to ruin and death the hapless fool who has transgressed against him. Secondly, there is the loss of wealth. The ways of debauchery lead to absolute want, for the debauchee, impelled by his tormenting passions, will part with all his possessions in order to gratify his appetites, { Proverbs 5:10 } until, unnerved and "feckless," incapable of any honest work, he is at his wits’ end to obtain even the necessities of life. { Proverbs 6:26 } For the third binding cord of the transgression is the loss of health; the natural powers decay, the flesh and the body are consumed with loathsome disease. { Proverbs 5:11 } Yet this is not the worst. Worse than all the rest is the bitter remorse, the groaning and the despair at the end of the shortened life. "How have I hated instruction, and nay heart despised reproof!" { Proverbs 5:12-14 } "Going down to the chambers of death," wise too late, the victim of his own sins remembers with unspeakable agony the voice of his teachers, the efforts of those who wished to instruct him. There is an inevitableness about it all, for life is not lived at a hazard; every path is clearly laid bare from its first step to its last before the eyes of the Lord; the ups and downs which obscure the way for us are all level to Him. { Proverbs 5:21 } Not by chance, therefore, but by the clearest interworking of cause and effect, these fetters of sin grow upon the feet of the sinner, while the ruined soul mourns in the latter days. The reason why Wisdom cries aloud, so urgently, so continually, is that she is uttering eternal truths, laws which hold in the spiritual world as surely as gravitation holds in the natural world; it is that she sees unhappy human beings going astray in the greatness of their folly, dying because they are without the instruction which she offers. { Proverbs 5:23 } But now, to turn to the large truth which is illustrated here by a particular instance, that our evil actions, forming evil habits, working ill results on us and on others, are themselves the means of our punishment. "The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us." We do not rightly conceive God or Judgment or Hell until we recognize that in spiritual and moral things there is a binding law, which is no arbitrary decree of God, but the essential constitution of His universe. He does not punish, but sin punishes; He does not make hell, but sinners make it. As our Lord puts it, the terrible thing about all sinning is that’ one may become involved in an eternal sin. { Mark 3:26 } It is by an inherent necessity that this results from a sin against the Holy Spirit within us. We cannot too frequently, or too solemnly, dwell upon this startling fact. It is a fact established, not by a doubtful text or two, nor by a mere ipse dixit of authority, but by the widest possible observation of life, by a concurrent witness of all teachers and all true religions. No planetary movement, no recurrence of the seasons, no chemical transformation, no physiological growth, no axiom of mathematics, is established on surer or more irrefutable grounds. Sin itself may even be defined, from an induction of facts, as "the act of a human will which, being contrary to the Divine Will, reacts with inevitable evil upon the agent." Sin is a presumptuous attempt on the part of a human will to disturb the irresistible order of the Divine Will, and can only draw down upon itself those lightnings of the Divine power, which otherwise would have flashed through the heavens beautiful and beneficent. Let us, then, try to impress upon our minds that, not in the one sin of which we have been speaking only, but in all sins alike, certain bands are being woven, certain cords twisted, certain chains forged, which must one day take and hold the sinner with galling stringency. Every sin is preparing for us a band of shame to be wound about our brows and tightened to the torture-point. There are many gross and generally condemned actions which when they are exposed bring their immediate penalty. To be discovered in dishonorable dealing, to have our hidden enormities brought into the light of day, to forfeit by feeble vices a fair and dignified position, will load a conscience which is not quite callous with a burden of shame that makes life quite intolerable. But there are many sins which do not entail this scornful censure of our fellows, sins with which they have a secret sympathy, for which they cherish an ill-disguised admiration, -the more heroic sins of daring ambition, victorious selfishness, or proud defiance of God. None the less these tolerated iniquities are weaving the inevitable band of shame for the brow: we shall not always be called on only to fade our fellows, for we are by our creation the sons of God, in whose image we are made, and eventually we must confront the children of Light, must look straight up into the face of God, with these sins-venial as they were thought-set in the light of His countenance. Then will the guilty spirit burn with an indescribable and unbearable shame, -"To hide my head! To bury my eyes that they may not see the rays of the Eternal Light," will be its cry. May we not say with truth that the shame which comes from the judgment of our fellows is the most tolerable of the bands of shame? Again, every sin is preparing for us a loss of wealth, of the only wealth which is really durable, the treasure in the heavens; every sin is capable of "bringing a man to a piece of bread," { Proverbs 6:26 } filching from him all the food on which the spirit lives. It is too common a sight to see a young spendthrift who has run through his patrimony in a few years, who much pass through the bankruptcy court, and who has burdened his estate and his name with charges and reproaches from which he can never again shake himself free. But that is only a superficial illustration of a spiritual reality. Every sin is the precursor of spiritual bankruptcy; it is setting one’s hand to a bill which, when it comes in, must break the wealthiest signatory. That little sin of yours, trivial as it seems, the mere inadvertence, the lighthearted carelessness, the petty spleen, the innocent romancing, the gradual hardening of the heart, -is, if you would see it, like scratching with a pen through and through a writing on a parchment. What is this writing? What is this parchment? It is a title-deed to an inheritance, the inheritance of the saints in light. You are quietly erasing your name from it and blotching its fair characters. When you come to the day of account, you will show your claim, and it will be illegible. "What," you will say, "am I to lose this great possession for this trifling scratch of the pen?" "Even so," says the Inexorable; "it is precisely in this way that the inheritance is lost; not, as a rule, by deliberate and reckless destruction of the mighty treasure, but by the thoughtless triviality, the indolent easefulness. See you, it is, the work of your own hand. His own iniquities shall take the wicked." Again, every sin is the gradual undermining of the health, not so much the body’s, as the soul’s health. Those are, as it were, the slightest sins by which "the flesh and the body are consumed." "Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes?" Who is stricken and hurt and beaten, bitten as if by an adder, stung as if by a serpent? { Proverbs 23:29 ; Proverbs 23:32 } It is the victim of drink, and every feature shows how he is holden, by the cords of his sin. But there is one who is drunk with the blood of his fellowmen, and has thriven at the expense of the poor, who yet is temperate, healthy, and strong. The disease of his soul does not come to the light of day. None the less it is there. The sanity of soul which alone can preserve the life in the Eternal World and in the presence of God is fatally disturbed by every sin. A virus enters the spirit; germs obtain a lodgment there. The days pass, the years pass. The respected citizen, portly, rich, and courted, goes at last in a good old age from the scene of his prosperity here, -surely to a fairer home above? Alas, the soul if it were to come into those fadeless mansions would be found smitten with a leprosy. This is no superficial malady; through and through the whole head is sick, the whole heart faint. Strange that men never noticed it down there in the busy world. But the fact is, it is the air of heaven which brings out these suppressed disorders. And the diseased soul whispers, "Take me out of this air, I beseech you, at all costs. I must have change of climate. This atmosphere is intolerable to me. I can only be well out of heaven." "Poor spirit," murmur the angels, "he says the truth; certainly he could not live here." Finally the worst chain forged in the furnace of sin is Remorse: for no one can guarantee to the sinner an eternal insensibility; rather it seems quite unavoidable that someday he must awake, and standing shamed before the eyes of his Maker, stripped of all his possessions and hopelessly diseased in soul, must recognize clearly what might have been and now cannot be. Memory will be busy. "Ah! that cursed memory!" he cries. It brings back all the gentle pleadings of his mother in that pure home long ago; it brings back all his father’s counsels; it brings back the words which were spoken from the pulpit, and all the conversations with godly friends. He remembers how he wavered" Shall it be the strait and hallowed road, or shall it be the broad road to destruction?" He remembers all the pleas and counterpleas, and how with open eyes he chose the way which, as he saw, went down to death. And now? Now it is irrevocable. He said he would take his luck and he has taken it. He said God would not punish a poor creature like him. God does not punish him. No, there is God making level all his paths now as of old. This punishment is not God’s; it is his own. His own iniquities have taken the wicked; he is held with the cords of his sin. Here then is the plain, stern truth, -a law, not of Nature only, but of the Universe. As you look into a fact so solemn, so awful; as the cadence of the chapter closes, do you not seem to perceive with a new clearness how men needed One who could take away the sins of the world, One who could break those cruel, bonds which men have made for themselves? The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.