03-Pro_1:10-19
LECTURE III.
"My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: we shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse. My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: for their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives. So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof."
We have already considered what may be regarded as the primary and fundamental lesson of this Book; and indeed of the whole Bible, so far as the practical counsels of it are concerned, and the ultimate design of all its discoveries:-"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." It is in beautiful harmony with this great general lesson, that Solomon, in solicitude for the youth around him, and for the youth of all coming generations, makes his first solemn warning, a warning against the dangers of Bad Company;-"My son, if sinners entice thee-consent thou not." There is also an interesting connexion between this admonition and the previous exhortation to mind parental counsel. To such counsel the enticements of sinners are conceived to be in opposition, (the father and the mother of whom he speaks, being evidently understood to make "the fear of the Lord" the great principle and end of their tuition and training,) and to be, of course, in their tendency and result the reverse;-so that instead of estimation and honour of the truest and highest kind, they would infallibly bring to shame all who hearkened to them and followed them.
"Sinners" is a designation sometimes used in Scripture as the generic or universal designation of our race; to every member of which, without exception, it is appropriate-for "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." But it is also used, not unfrequently, of those who remain under the power of their natural sinful lusts and passions, in distinction from such as have been turned from the error of their way, and are walking in newness of life. (See Psalms 1:5. John 9:31.)
Here it signifies those who do not fear God,-those who hear not the instruction of their pious fathers, if they enjoy such instruction, but "forsake the law of their mother." Against the enticements of such, the young are here affectionately admonished.-Youth is the season of ardent passions and of buoyant and sanguine hopes. Not having, as yet, tried his strength, the young man is naturally self-confident; and, unexperienced as he is in the deceitfulness of the world and the precariousness of temporal things, he is incredulous of the premonitions of coming evil. He smiles at them as the gloomy presages of sombre and superstitious minds, and exults in the lively anticipation of good. The morning of life sparkles before his eyes in dewy freshness, and promises, to his ardent spirit, a long day of sunshine and joy. It is neither the purpose nor the tendency of the discoveries of the Bible, to sadden the natural vivacity of early life; to quench the gleam of light-hearted pleasure in the youthful eye; to shroud the rising morn with dark clouds of melancholy. God is good. All his prohibitions are only prohibitions of what would be injurious to ourselves;-and all the principles of which he orders the cultivation and exercise, are inseparably associated with the attainment and enjoyment of happiness.
But, alas! How small a proportion of mankind are under the influence and guidance of these "great principles." And in a world where the true fearers of God are so sadly in the minority, those who are under their dominion cannot fail to stand exposed to many temptations and to corresponding hazards. They are surrounded, on all sides, by "sinners" of every description and of every degree. They come in contact, at all points, with the infection of evil. They are in danger, at every step, from the corrupting and deadening power of all the varieties of irreligion,-that of the openly profligate, and that of the creditably sober,-that of the avowed infidel, and that of the inconsistent professor of the faith. In a city like the one in which we dwell, such young men as are at all inclined to the fear of God are environed with innumerable perils. Their incipient piety, when not yet confirmed into decided godliness, is like a spark of fire hovering over the surface of the ocean. Allurements on the one hand, and intimidations on the other, everywhere abound; and the Arch-Adversary plies all his wiles, to catch away whatever seeds of truth and elements of goodness have been sown in their hearts. Of all the dangers to which the young can be exposed, there is not one which experience pronounces more imminent than the company and example of the ungodly. "Sinners" are fond to have associates in their evil courses. Some of these courses are such as cannot be pursued without associates. And in how many instances besides, is solitary vice,-vice, of which the perpetrator has no companion but his own conscience,-felt to be irksome and miserable! How often is it for the purpose of preventing the intrusions, and silencing the annoying whispers or louder remonstrances of this troublesome visitor, that company is courted!" Hand joins in hand." They keep one another in countenance. They rally each other’s spirits. They drown "dull care." They unite in "making a mock at sin." They help each other to "break God’s bands asunder, and cast away his cords from them," and, for the time at least, to give their foreboding fears to the winds. And, while the fearers of God, in the exercise of a pure benevolence, rejoice with the angels of heaven over a repenting sinner-over one who turns from the "fatal paths of folly, sin, and death," into the paths of wisdom, purity, and peace,-these children of the "Wicked One" participate in his infernal pleasure, when they succeed in seducing any from the right way, and thus obtaining an accession to their numbers, and an encouragement to their selfish indulgences, from the ranks of religion and virtue. In the verses before us, Solomon evidently selects a particular case, in illustration of the counsel with which the passage commences-"If sinners entice thee, consent thou not." The particular case selected in exemplification, is that of young men combining into parties for plundering or marauding expeditions,-either against the caravans of travellers in the desert, or into the territories of adjacent tribes. You may, and not without reason, think that the case is one that has very little application to you. And, assuredly, I am under no serious apprehension of any of my youthful auditors forming themselves into bands of freebooters,-into gangs of thieves and robbers. But there are involved in the particular exemplification, important principles, capable of general application. It shall be my aim to bring out these principles; and in doing this, I shall avoid dwelling on the particular case further than may be necessary for due illustration; conceiving that there is nothing more unprofitable, than to spend time in dissuading from courses which there is not the remotest likelihood of one amongst my hearers following out. We have, in the first portion of the passage, the Enticement Of Sinners,-and in the last, the Divine Warning Against It. The Enticement is contained in verses Proverbs 1:11-14. "Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: we shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse."
I wish your attention here to the style of artful temptation that is adopted,-the inducements that are held out to compliance.
1. The first is-the privacy and concealment of their villainies. "Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause."-Even by minds that are little if at all under the influence of the fear of God, a strong objection might be stated against compliance with solicitation to evil because of the risk of discovery, and of consequent disgrace and punishment from men. This very natural objection is here met and overruled. "There is no danger," say those tempters; "we do nothing openly-we ’lay wait’-we ’lurk privily’-we take good care not to expose ourselves-we have eluded detection hitherto, and we shall elude it still." And they boast themselves in the very art and skill with which they have evaded discovery, and cheated all their pursuers. And is not the same objection many a time silenced in the same way, in every department of wickedness?-in every description of solicitation to evil? How often do the profligate, in coaxing the inexperienced and unwary youth to become one of their party, tell him, with insinuating address, how easily the thing may be done without detection,-without father or mother, or any one knowing at all about it!" It may be kept perfectly secret, you know; you may depend upon our secresy; no one of us, be assured, will ever betray you; and, unless you choose to be such a fool as to blab it out yourself, who is to know it? Come away. If no one finds it out-where’s the harm?"
Now, my young friends, there is only one thing which requires to be said in answer to such insinuating address. These persons do not choose to remember, what, I fondly trust, you will never allow yourselves to forget-that there is an eye that never sleeps, always present, always wakeful.-"Thou, God, Seest Me!" "There is no darkness nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves." O beware. "Be sure your sin will find you out." You cannot dig deep enough to hide it from the eyes of the Lord. And if He sees it, what although it eludes the detection of every human eye! Should your sins never find a place in any record on earth, forget not, they are recorded in heaven, marked indelibly for judgment, in the book of God’s remembrance.
2. The second enticement is-the courage and boldness of their exploits: "Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit."-This is the boastful language of determined bravoes. To many youthful spirits, there are few qualities so dazzling and captivating as courage. And some of the books which furnish lessons for early life, by presenting courage in attractive forms, and yet in association with qualities and actions far from justifiable, serve to take off from the opening mind the decided feeling of moral reprobation, which, but for such association, these qualities and actions would draw upon them. So strong, frequently, is this tendency to admire intrepid boldness, that we feel it difficult to help admiring it, even when the exploits in which it signalizes itself are in themselves unprincipled and wicked. And, as is the case in the passage before us, the imagination is artfully drawn away from the nature of the deed, of which, were it allowed to be duly contemplated, the atrocity might be startling, and is fixed on the heroism displayed in the doing of it.
Now, only change the term. For courage, substitute spirit; and we have immediately before us an every-day temptation to sin,-one in constant, hourly use,-extensively and ruinously prevalent. No charge is more dreaded by the young than that of want of spirit-the imputation of shrinking and dastardly timidity. A lad of spirit is the designation they are ambitious to attain. Now, here, too, my young friends, my warning is similar. I remind you, affectionately and seriously, how miserably perverted such terms as courage, and spirit, and others of like character, are, when the authority to be violated, and the displeasure to be incurred, and the sentence to be brought upon you, are the authority, the displeasure, and the sentence of the infinite God. Every sin is a direct defiance of omnipotence. O let not the name of courage be abused and desecrated by being so applied. It is not courage. It is insensibility. It is profanity. It is madness. (Job 9:4. Isaiah 45:9.)
3. The third enticement is, the profit of crime:-"We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil." The allurement thus held out is that of immediate inches;-the acquisition at once, by a single bold adventure or two, of what it usually requires years of unrelaxing thought, and solicitude, and toil, and travail, to obtain. These seducers present the allurement of a short cut to wealth,-"Come with us; we shall soon make a man of you; you shall wallow in wealth immediately." And is this not capable of extended application? Are there no circles of companionship into which a youth may be drawn by circumstances or by solicitation, in which the old-fashioned every-day methods of making money are laughed at as spiritless and sickening; and shorter and easier ways to riches, or at least to what is necessary for the indulgence of vicious passions, are proposed and adopted! And when against particular startling practices, he ventures to raise objections on the ground of moral principle, he is coaxed, or ridiculed and bantered, out of them; or satisfied by unsound but specious arguments. He incurs the expenses I have alluded to. The funds for these must from time to time be recruited, for paying debts of vice or debts of honour; and the how becomes a question of agonizing perplexity and bitter disquietude. He is induced, by pressing but criminal necessity, to venture in thought on methods, or to listen to them when hinted or boldly proposed by others, from which, before, his conscience would have shrunk in horror. But that conscience has lost of its sensitiveness; and it is now to be soothed and drugged by the powerful though illegitimate pleadings of necessity. Objections are overruled and put down; and the moral obliquity of the action is as plausibly as possible covered from the arrows of self-reproach, by the force of the all-sufficient, irresistible plea-that necessity has no law;-the thing must be done; there is absolutely no help for it.
I hope I have not been describing a reality in the experience of any youth now hearing me. It is no mere fiction. It has many a time been a reality; and I warn you against whatever seductions, or enticements of sinners, might by possibility make it a reality with you.
4. The last consideration of an enticing nature here presented is-the honourable union, and the frank and openhearted generosity of the fraternity by which the invitation is urged:-" Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse."
"The heart is deceitful above all things,"-and there are few ways in which its deceitfulness is more strikingly apparent than in the considerations by which even the worst, the most unprincipled of men, quiet their consciences, and get even beyond that,-plume themselves, and flatter one another with imaginary good qualities. Confederates in the very worst of evils have valued themselves on their mutual good faith;-their fidelity to the very engagements and oaths that constitute their chief guilt;-their very honour and consistency in crime. The tempters in the passage before us are a kind of gentlemen banditti. And the representation held forth of a generous, social brotherhood, pledged honour, joint stock, common risks and common profits, is not a little imposing and captivating to the youthful mind. Is not this, too, or something akin to this, one of the enticements incessantly held out by dissipated associates in the merriment and the profligacy of vice, when they have marked out a victim of seduction, and court him to join their company? They are the choice spirits. Theirs is the good fellowship; so open, so jovial, so kind-hearted; so free of all the puling cant of sanctimonious grimace; so generous and honourable to one another; so-every thing that can be wished for enjoying life!-But O my young friends, beware of the enticing illusion. That it is an illusion let the dear-bought experience of thousands convince you, without your venturing to put it to the test of experiment for yourselves. You would but add to the accumulation of proof and of practical warning. It was the maxim even of a heathen moralist, that there is no true friendship but amongst the good. Where there is not sound principle, union cannot be depended upon. It is but a name, an empty pretension, a deceitful lure, a snare of golden texture, for the feet of the inexperienced and thoughtless. May God deliver you from it! Again I say-Beware!
Let me now request your attention to the Divine Dissuasion-monitory and authoritative, which follows in verses Proverbs 1:15-19, "My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: for their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives. So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof."
1. The first thing to be noticed here is, the language of affectionate interest and trembling solicitude in which the admonition is couched;-"my Son." Whether Solomon had any eye, as a father, to his own son, Rehoboam, we cannot with certainty say. It is more likely, that it is the language of affectionate concern for the young in general, expressing itself in individual address, for the sake of impression and effect-that so each youth who read the dissuasion might regard it as if he himself were personally spoken to. I call on each, therefore, now hearing me, to hear for himself. And if I know my own heart, I think I can adopt the address with a measure at least of the affection by which it was originally dictated-"My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path." Every Christian minister, as well as every Christian parent, ought to feel for, and so to warn, the objects of his affection. How exquisite the delight of a godly parent, when he sees the child of his heart’s love choosing the "fear of the Lord,"-walking in His ways, and departing from evil! How he "travails in birth" for those who are "bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh," "until Christ be formed in them!" And surely, to every benevolent and pious mind, there can be few sights more deeply moving than that of a young man-after a struggle, perhaps, with early impressions and the restraints and compunctions of conscience-giving way before temptation, yielding to the enticements, joining the company, and lending-at first a timid, but afterwards a more prompt and daring hand to the practices of the ungodly;-like the heedless insect, insensible of its danger, wheeling and fluttering, in sportive mazes, round the consuming flame;-like the gallant ship, that has come within the outermost slowly circling eddies of the whirlpool, and is gradually, and with increasing celerity, sucked in to its destruction! When we behold such a youth, incredulous of warning because unconscious of his peril, thus going forward to irretrievable shame and ruin, it is not anger that is waked in our bosoms; it is pity; it is tender anxiety; it is compassionate and thrilling fear. Our heart swells; our eye fills; our hand is stretched out; our voice is lifted up in the accents of earnest and tender expostulation-"my Son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path."
2. Mark, in the second place, the extent to which the admonition goes.-It is not to a gradual but an immediate; it is not to a partial but an entire, abandonment. It advises complete and instant separation; a renouncing of all intercourse; and a keeping cautiously and constantly aloof;-"Walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path." This is the counsel of sound wisdom, not that of Solomon only, but of God. Half-measures will not do. There must be no tampering with temptation-no compromise-no partial adoption of the practices of sinners, in the hope, or with the resolution of stopping and retracing your steps when you have advanced a certain length. Would you swallow poison by degrees to try how much your constitution would bear,-how far you could go without actual suicide? No. You must not only not comply,-you must not listen. He who has listened, has half complied; and he who makes one step in compliance, wretchedly deludes himself, if he imagines he can recede at pleasure, or can tell confidently how far he is to go. O do not think of trying your own strength of principle and power of self-command. Rather, let the first exertion be, to resist the first solicitations to evil; or, if with these you have unhappily complied, to arrest your progress at the present point. To try your own strength is presumption; and God helps not the presumptuous. He "giveth grace unto the lowly."
3. In immediate connection with this, and partly indeed identical with it,-consider to what extremes the commencements of evil ultimately lead:-often to such extremes as the youth who is enticed into wicked company never anticipated,-never dreamed of, or imagined it within the range of the possible that he should ever endure even to witness, far less to participate:-"For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood."
There is a natural and fearful progress in sin. Success in it is a curse; for it is an encouragement to go on. In the course of advancement, the inclination onward gains strength, while the power of receding declines. Beware then, I pray you, of first steps. Smile not in self-confident scorn at the well-meant but needless warning. Many have scorned it before you, whose scorn has been turned into the bitterness of unavailing regret, when miserable experience has forced upon them the lesson of their folly. Deem nothing impossible for you, that it is within the reach of human power to do in the form of evil, if you have once given way to the violation of principle. You may not only go lengths that will ruin yourselves, you may contribute to the shame and ruin of the companions and victims of your vices; you may ruin families and fortunes; you may break honest and sensitive hearts; you may bring down grey hairs with sorrow to the tomb,-the grey hairs of your own loving but disappointed and grief-stricken parents, or of the fathers and mothers of your associates in evil.
4. The objects of Solomon’s affectionate solicitude are further reminded, that their folly and their guilt would be the more aggravated and inexcusable, if they should venture into the society of sinners in despite of admonition:-"Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird." These words, it is true, might be interpreted of the artfulness and cautious secrecy, with which the seducers described lay their snares. They take care not to let their gins be seen by the birds they are laid to catch, which might scare them, and defeat their end. They do not expose their designs all at once. They deal subtlety. They show them at first as little as possible; and the little that must be seen they present in its least repulsive or most attractive form,-keeping studiously out of view what might startle and shock the uninitiated in the "mysteries of iniquity." They lay their schemes of seduction warily; and suit their decoys to the various characters and circumstances of their victims.
I am disposed, however, to understand the words as rather signifying the aggravation of the guilt which would be incurred in consequence of the warning thus given: as if he had said-"Now you are put on your guard. I have given you faithful premonition. I have set before your eyes the gins of the seducer. If you go into them, you go in with your eyes open. Let my warning have the effect upon you which the sight of the fowler setting his nets has on the fowls of heaven. Flee from temptation. If your foot be taken now, you will sin presumptuously-sin against light and knowledge. The guilt will be entirely your own; and your blood will be upon your own heads. Let the snare, then, now you are warned, be spread for you "in vain." Show that you are aware of your danger. ’He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.’"
5. The last dissuasive consideration is-the ruinous consequences of yielding to the enticements of sinners:-"And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives. So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof." In the latter of these two verses, the pronoun "which" is supplementary. The meaning clearly is, "So"-that is, so deceitful, so ruinous-" are the ways of him who is greedy of gain; it taketh away the life of its owners"-or, "it taketh away the life of those who are under its power." The verse will thus express-not the murderous conduct which the greed of gain produces in order to its gratification, but the mischievous and destructive effects of the base and criminal passion to the person himself by whom it is indulged,-exposing his bodily life to jeopardy and his soul to perdition. The sentiment of the two verses seems to be-that although the workers of iniquity might elude the vigilance of men, and the avenging visitation of human tribunals, or of the resentments of fellow-creatures, yet they were their own very worst enemies. The certain effect, or inevitable consequence, of any particular course of conduct is sometimes expressed by this figure of speech, and it is full of energy-as if it had been in the intention of the agent, the object he had in view. The idea is-that, had it been so, had he indeed intended it so, he could not have adopted means more appropriate for attaining his end. The expression in the 18th verse is evidently borrowed from the 11th. There the ungodly are represented as saying-"Come with us." But, says the wise man, they are bringing a surer and heavier destruction upon themselves, than any they can ever inflict upon others. They invite you to "lay wait," to "lurk privily," for the "blood" and the "life" of unoffending fellowmen; but in truth "they lay wait for their own blood,-they lurk privily for their own lives." They are themselves their surest and most pitiable victims. The vengeance of offended heaven pursues the evil-doer; secretly, silently, invisibly, but closely, constantly, unswervingly, tracking his steps. It is behind him in all the windings and doublings of iniquity; it finds him out in all the hidden haunts of vice. In a memory from which nothing escapes, it treasures up against him every act and word and thought of evil. It follows him all the downward road to perdition, and at last, shuts him up in the prison of hell, and there takes up its abode with him for ever. It may not be appointed to overtake him in this world. His schemes of evil may prosper to the end. But overtake him it inevitably will; if not here, hereafter. Will you seek, then, your own destruction? Will you, with frantic infatuation, try what amount of wrong and ruin you can bring upon yourselves? Will you foolishly and recklessly presume, in despite of the warnings both of men and of God? Will you, knowingly and wilfully, consign to damnation your never-dying souls? Will you be, in the very worst and most awful sense of the designation-a SELF-MURDERER?
I conclude with two observations.-First, Let not any imagine, from the nature of the case selected by Solomon, and of the course of illustration suggested by it-that there is no danger, excepting to the openly profligate-to adepts and bravoes in impiety, vice, and violence. That would be a sad mistake indeed. There is danger to all who are living without the fear of God-who are not thus "wise unto salvation." We require not to go to the dens and caves of robbers and assassins, to the cells of bridewells and jails, to the polluted and infernal haunts of abandoned licentiousness, in order to find those who are without this fear, and who are in danger of perishing,-who are perpetrating the fearful suicide just mentioned. They abound around you, even among the sober, plodding, money-making men of the world. All ungodliness exposes to death. You may ruin your souls by worldly-mindedness, as effectually as by profligacy. Whatever it be that keeps you from giving up your hearts to God,-whatever it be that keeps you from being in earnest about the salvation of your souls,-whatever it be that shuts the Saviour out of your hearts, arid prevents you from taking up the cross and following him,-that will be the ruin of your souls.
2. We have in this passage associations for evil. We invite youth to Associations For Good,-to the Church of the living God, the community of the faithful; and to those societies which Christian piety and Christian benevolence have instituted, for the promotion of religion, and for the diffusion of the knowledge of divine truth. Shall Satan have his combinations, and not Christ,-the god of this world, and not the God of heaven? Let Christians associate. Let Christian youth associate. Let them "consider one another, to provoke unto love, and unto good works." Let them "exhort one another daily,"-strengthen each other’s hands, and encourage each other’s hearts in the way of the Lord. Shall Science have its combinations, and not Religion? While Societies are formed for the advancement of general knowledge, or of particular departments of philosophy and the arts,-shall not the heads and hearts and hands of Christians" be brought into united counsel and co-operation, for the promotion of knowledge still better, and blessings still more precious and enduring than those which all human discovery can ever confer? Shall not the experience of age and the energy of youth combine for ends, so glorifying to Christ, so salutary, so eternally salutary, to mankind?-O! if such associations of youth as those we have been contemplating be melancholy and revolting,-how delightful are Associations of youth for religious improvement,-for their own and one another’s spiritual benefit,-bands of young philanthropists, whose object it is, to make inroads on the kingdom of Satan,-to arrest the progress of vice and irreligion,-to do good to all as they have opportunity,-and in the terms in which their divine Master describes the end of his coming into the world-"not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them?"-To the youth of all such Associations we say-Go on, and prosper! And if sinners entice you to quit your own for theirs, consent not. Be it your endeavour to allure them to yours, to win them over to the Lord’s side, drawing them with the cords of love,-bearing in mind, that "he who converteth a sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins."