Proverbs 23

Proverbs 23:12-18

My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, every mine. 16. Yes, my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things.

We have here the duty of parents and children, and the comfort arising from the mutual discharge of the relation they bear to each other.

1. A parent must instruct, a child attend, and apply his heart to learn the words of knowledge, the doctrines and precepts of the divine word, whereby he may become wise unto salvation.

2. A parent must correct, a child submissively how under the chastening rod. It is as painful to the tender father’s heart to inflict, as it can be to the son to suffer the correction; but it is absolutely necessary, when their evil tempers call for this check, and must not be withheld; only it must be done without passion, and accompanied with the gracious expeditation, and then he shall not die, the stroke will not be so severe as to hurt him: it will be the means of preserving him from those evil courts, which might bring him to an ignominious death; and, under God’s blessing, effect a reformation of heart, and save his God from hell. For this should be every parent’s chief design, desire, and prayer, respecting their children, that God would make both his instructions and corrections effectual to this great end, the salvation of their fouls.

3. The blessing will be mutual. When he sees his labours succeed, the parent will rejoice in beholding the wisdom of his son’s heart, evidenced in his whole conversation and conduct, thank God for such a child, and depart in peace, comfortably afflicted for the shall leave those behind him, who will tread in his steps, and serve his father’s God. And thus to be made wise in heart, and learn to speak and act might, will be a Son’s greatest joy: he will reap the benefit of the instructions and corrections he hath received, and count it among his chief mercies to have had such a parent.

4. Let not thine heart envy sinners: but he thou in the fear of the LORD all the day long. 18. For surely there is an end, and thine expectation shall not be cut off.

v. 17, 18. When we see the prosperity of sinners, we are too apt to envy them their abundance, but it is our folly; for we have a better portion infinitely than they enjoy, when walking in the fear of the Lord all the day long; the sense of his love and favour, is better than all manner of riches; and if we mark the end, shall never wish an exchange, since all our momentary trials shall quickly have their period, and our faith and hope be lost in the fruition of eternal blessedness; but the wicked shall lie down in torments intolerable, uninterrupted, everlasting.

19. Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way. 20. Be not amongst wine-bishers; amongst riotous eaters of flesh. 21. For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.

Proverbs 23:19-21

Repeated calls to engage our attention, intimate how prone we are to let our minds wander.

1. We are in general exhorted to hear the instructions of parents, murders, or others, who kindly wish to direct us right; and he wise, not merely hearing, but receiving the words of knowledge, and that evidenced by guiding our heart in the way, the way of faith and holiness, which leads to glory.

2. In particular we are warned against gluttons and drunkenness; vice most odious to God, most hurtful to society, and most destructive to ourselves, both to body and soul, fame and fortune, in time and in eternity: to avoid which, we must shun the company of drunkards, and refuse to join in the entertainments of the luxurious; for unless we avoid the temptation, we shall not long keep from the sin. To deter us from these vices, the immediate evil consequences are inflicted upon, since present danger influences the most, beyond any fear of future recompense: they are the high road to ruin, will waste our substance, endorse our bodies, supply our faculties, disqualify us for business, and bring us to a state wretched, contemptible, in want and rags to suffer, the fruit of our folly and wickedness.

3. Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old. 23. Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. 24. The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begeteth a wise child shall have joy of him. 25. Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that share thee shall rejoice.

Proverbs 23:22-25

We have here,

1. Parental reverence enjoined. The father who begat, and the mother who brought us forth, as they have peculiar authority over us, and possess the tenderest regard for us, therefore, attention to them is not more our duty than our interest; nor

must we despise them when old, or jest at the grave advice of our aged mothers; experience is best learnt by years, and grey heads the wisest counsellors.

2. An exhortation to prize highly the truth, the revealed word of God, the gospel of our salvation, with all the wisdom, instruction, and understanding therein contained. We must say it as the most desirable acquisition, which we spare no labour or price to purchase; reading, hearing, meditating on the scriptures, praying over them, conferring with those, whose knowledge and experience is most eminent; and, when possessed of the truth, holding it fast in profession and practice, never selling it for the riches, honours, or pleasures of the world; or parting with it through any fears of reproach, loss, or suffering.

3. The satisfaction this will afford to pious parents, and to give them joy, will be the delight of every gracious child. They greatly will rejoice to see their offspring thus wise in the knowledge, and righteous in the practice of the truth; and it will be their comfort and credit in their old and serve to cheat those evil days, when they would otherwise have said, there is no pleasure in them.

4. My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. 27. For an whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. 28. She also lieth in want; as for a prey, and increaseth the trangleofors among men.

Proverbs 23:26-28

The great thing Christ requires of his children is their heart; for without thou, all besides is nothing worth; and most reasonable is the demand, when his title to it is to evident: and where the heart is right with God, our ways will be directed to please him; we shall eye the path of duty to walk in it, and the leadings of his providence, to improve under every dispensation, and in this way shall be preserved from evil; especially from that most fatal share of youthful lusts, in which dreadful whirlpool so many souls are drowned eternally. For an whore is a deep ditch, and a strange woman is a narrow pit, whose lewdness and covetousness are infallible; and those who fall therein, sink for the most part irrecoverably, never to rise up again. She also lieth in want as for a prey, ravenous as a beath of the forest, and practising every wise to draw men to her souls, and plunder them, not only of their money, but what is infinitely more precious, of their virtue, honour, and peace of mind: and increaseth the trangleofors among men; drunkenness, theft, lying, swearing, and all the train of abominations naturally flow from such a connection; or the increaseth the perfidious; for her they break the covenant of marriage, are faithless to men; and worst of all, treacherously depart from God, to their everlasting destruction. Let him that readeth, understand, and fly the fatal toil; be deaf to enticement, and mark the end of those ways.

29. Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? 30. They that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek: mixt wine. 31. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, make it moreeth itself aright. 32. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth; like an adder. 33. Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. 34. Yes, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. 35. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.

Proverbs 23:29-35

Drunkenness is the door at which all misery and mischief enters, and therefore we have,

1. The fatal effects of it set before us, in order to deter us from the sin.

(1.) It is the cause of endless quarrels. Inflamed with wine, and reason lost, the tongue is let loose, scurrilous, abusive, provoking; contentions arise on the most frivolous grounds, or none; blows and bloodshed enfor, and long woe and sorrow are the dire consequences. Whilst in the redness of eyes, beaten in the fray, or inflamed with the debauch, men carry about with them their brand of infamy, and pain and deformity are their present punishment.

(2.) It excites to all manner of lewdness. The bottle ends with a whore, or binds the drunkard weighing after his neighbour’s wife, ready for every scene of guilt, and insensible to every danger.

(3.) In their cups men utter perverse things; reveal their secrets, betray their truths, their talk is obscene, rude, profane, absurd; at which, in soberer hours, they will be overwhelmed with shame.

(4.) They are giddy, their feet stagger, their beads swim, their

their eyes roll, as a ship in a storm; and as a man asleep on the top of a muff, they are secure, and thoughtless of the impending danger, though ready to rush into the abyss of misery: they are deaf to rebuke, and corrections make no impression.

(5.) They are hardened. Notwithstanding all that is past, no sooner is the drunkard awake, than, like the dog, he returns to his vomit again; and perhaps it is his language of boasting to his companions, v. 35. how well he came off the night before, unhurt amidst the blows and beating; that glorying in his shame.

(6.) Men must feel at last the dire effects of drunkenness in this world, when their bodies, bloated as with poison, grow loathsome with disease, and tormented with the pally, dropsy, grou, and all the train of miseries drinking brings on; and their fouls, with horror, reflect upon the past, and are terrified with the fearful looking-for of judgment to come. But if such men live and die stupid, their damnation flumbereth not; the worm that never dies, and the fire that never shall be quenched, awaits them; when they shall lie down in torments, and nothing be able to allay the fiercences of these everlasting burnings.

2. The admonition given us. We must fly from the temptation, if we mean to escape the sin: we are safe only by keeping out of harm’s way: and three directions are here given; (1.) Not to fork such company, but avoid them, and than the taverns which the drunkards haunt. (2.) Not to tarry long at the wine; when men sit in company, one glab is apt to draw on another; and if the senses are not drowned, yet the soul is hurt, and the precious hours of life idly squandered. (3.) Not to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able