MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE LATTER CLAUSES of verseS 5 and 6.

MADE OR MARRED BY DESIRES.

The word translated "naughtiness" should be rendered "lust" or "desires." (See Critical Notes).

I. Sin is compliance with desires that do not harmonise with moral righteousness. A traveller on a lonely and dangerous road may have two guides offered to him by the opposite promptings of his own mind. He may have a strong desire to explore a path which looks most pleasant and attractive but which he knows does not lead to his destination, and is beset with many perils although its aspect is inviting. On the other hand, his good sense tells him it is unwise to run the risk of injury by thus turning aside from the road that he knows leads to the goal which he desires to reach, although the path may be rough and toilsome. If he yields to his first desire and pursues the dangerous path until it is too late to retrace his steps, he may lose his life by a false step over a precipice and so be destroyed by his own desires. All men are under the dominion of desires, and if their desires after God and righteousness have the rule they will be guided by them into the ways of deliverance and safety, as we saw in considering verse 3. But if they yield themselves up to the guidance of desires which run counter to the law of God and right, as they are made known both by conscience and revelation, they sink lower and lower in the scale of moral being and become slaves when they might have been free men. Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin." Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness" (John viii. 34; Rom. vi. 16).

66

II. The sinner is the forger of his own fetters. If a man labours in his field, his garden, or his vineyard, in harmony with the known laws which God has ordained to be observed, he may reasonably expect a good crop-an abundant harvest. But if he sets at nought these laws-if he yields to desires of selfindulgence or in any other way acts contrary to the conditions which are indispensable to success-he has no one to blame but himself if he finds himself a beggar when he might have had plenty. The law of God's moral universe is written in revelation, upon conscience, in the history of men, that "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,' that "The wages of sin is death" (Gal. vi. 7; Rom. vi. 23). If men are taken," are first enslaved by sin and then suffer the penalty of sinning, they have themselves digged the pit of their own destruction-have forged the chains by which they are bound.

OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.

Verse 4. How badly led those are who are not righteous, appears in this: that while righteousness does everything for a man in journeying to his end, wealth does nothing for him. "Wealth," which seems to be the great guide of the human family, not only cannot deliver, but cannot profit in the crisis of fate. While "righteousWhile "righteousness," all covered with stains, lets no day go to waste; lets no mile be utterly lost; lets no fear ever be

realised; still grapples a man's hand; and still guides a man's tread, till he steps at last into the regions of safety. -Miller.

It were no bad comparison to liken mere rich men to camels and mules; for they often pursue their devious way, over hills and mountains, laden with India purple, with gems, aromas, and generous wines upon their backs, attended, too, by a long line of servants as a safeguard on their way.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 7.

THE DEATH OF THE WICKED.

I. An inevitable event in relation to a wicked man. "When a wicked man dieth." He must die. "It is appointed unto men,"-to the good and to the bad-" once to die." (Heb. ix. 27). 1. This inevitable event is most undesired by the wicked man. The certainty of any coming event will make it to be dreaded in proportion as it is felt that its advent must be followed by unpleasant consequences. The man who knows that nothing can save him from becoming a bankrupt at no distant period feels the certainty of the fact to be a most unwelcome thought. The man who knows that on a certain day of reckoning he will be unable to meet his liabilities, and that the day will as surely arrive as the planets will hold on their way in the heavens, can only look forward to the future with the most gloomy apprehensions. That coming day is ever hanging over his present, and imparting a sting to every hour in which he allows his thoughts to dwell upon it. The certainty of death is a most painful subject of contemplation for a wicked man. Conscience tells him that he has no resources wherewith to meet the demands of that day-he knows that he is unfit to face that most ruthless of all creditors, and the knowledge that nothing can turn aside his footsteps is often a bitter drop in the cup of his present apparent prosperity and security. 2. The wicked man takes refuge from the thought of the certainty of the event in the uncertainty of the time when it will take place. He indulges in "hopes," and "expectations," concerning the present life, because of the indefiniteness of its length. Although he knows that death must come one day, he hopes that it may be many years hence. The rich fool in our Lord's parable knew that he must die some day— he admitted that certainty. But he made the uncertainty of the time an excuse for taking present ease. He refused to take into account the possibility that the summons had gone forth: "This night thy soul shall be required of thee." 3. The certainty of the death of the wicked is a most painful subject of thought to good men. They look at the present condition of the ungodly, and, knowing the indispensable and intimate connection between present character and future happiness or misery, the certainty of the death of the wicked man is often a more saddening thought to them than to the man himself. The contemplation of such an event must give pain to a soul in harmony with God and goodness. 4. Yet, looked at with regard to his relation with others, the certainty of the death of the wicked is most desirable. If one portion of the body has become so diseased that the whole body is likely to suffer from it, a severance between the diseased part and the sound body must take place, however painful the operation may be. The loss of the part is indispensable to the salvation of the rest. There have been, and there are, men who are so morally diseased that their removal from the world is to be desired for the sake of others. It must be regarded as a blessing for the world that the death of the wicked is certain. The death of one wicked man is sometimes the means of bringing peace to many to whom his existence was a curse. There are men who do the best thing for the world when they leave it-their exit from it is the greatest benefit they have ever conferred upon it.

II. The wicked man is in his worst condition when he has most need of being in his best. It is at death that his expectation and hope perish. The time when we approach a crisis in our history is a time when we need to be most furnished with all the resources that will be demanded to meet it. It was more necessary that David should be filled with faith and courage when he went forth to meet Goliath than when he was keeping his sheep in his father's fields. When a youthful candidate for academical honour comes to the day of his examination,

If on that

he needs to concentrate all his past days of study into one focus. day all his mental powers are not at their very best, he is likely to be overwhelmed with disappointment instead of to be crowned with honour. It is sad indeed to be dragged down by fear and despair at the moment when we need all the inspiration of confidence and hope to bear us up. The day of death is the great crisis to which all human life is tending-it is the day when a man needs every possible support to enable him to meet the solemn fact with which he stands face to face. Hope of a blessed immortality should then bear us up. We ought to be able to say, "I know in whom I have believed;" "I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand" (2 Tim. iv. 6). But this is the hour when a wicked man's hope takes wing and flies away. He is at his worst when he needs to be at his best.

OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.

Men derive almost the whole of their happiness from hope. The wicked man laughs at the righteous because he lives by hope; but the wicked man himself does the same with this difference, that whilst the hopes of the one are coeval with eternity, those of the other are bounded by time. The present situation of the wicked man never yields him the pleasure which he wishes and expects. . . . if his hope is deferred, his heart is sick; if it is accomplished, he is still unsatisfied; but he comforts himself with some other hope, like a child who sees a rainbow on the top of a neighbouring hill, and runs to take hold of it, but sees it as far removed from him as before. Thus the life of a wicked man is spent in vain wishes, and toils, and hopes, till death kills at once his body, his hope, and his happiness.-Lawson.

It is sad to be drawn into ruin by desire" (see last verse); because it breeds only "hope," and that is sure to perish. "The world passes away, and the desire of it" (1 John ii. 17).Miller.

There have been some who have questioned whether the doctrine of a future state was understood under the former dispensation. They have regarded that economy as to such an extent carnal, worldly, and temporary, as to have excluded from it all reference. to that subject. I might show, from many passages, the falsity of such a sentiment. In this verse we have one

of them. Nothing can be clearer than that, were there not such a future state, the expectation and hope of righteous and wicked alike must perish together, and that the very distinction so evidently made here between the one and the other proceeds upon the assumption of a state beyond the present.-Wardlaw.

He died, perhaps, in strong hopes of heaven, as those seem to have done that came rapping and bouncing at heaven's gates, with "Lord, Lord, open to us," but were sent away with a "Depart, I know you not" (Matt. vii. 22). His most strong hope shall come to nothing. He made a bridge of his own shadow and thought to go over it, but is fallen into the brook. thought he had taken hold of God; but it is but with him as with a child that catcheth at the shadow on the wall, which he thinks he holds fast. But he only thinks so.-Trapp.

He

He never had good by any hope, which hath not the fruition of his hope at death. Though a man should never obtain his desire in any earthly thing during his life, yet, if he enjoy salvation after this life, he hath failed of nothing. Though a man should miss of nothing that his heart could wish for, while breath is in his body, yet if he be damned, when the soul goeth out of his body, he hath never gained anything.-Dod.

Hope and expectation are long-lived things; though weak, and sick, and

blind, yet they hold out. They live with the longest liver, and seldom die in any, until they die themselves in whom they are. But the hope of the

wicked doth not only die, but perish, that is, is lost in some unlooked-for, unthought-of manner.-Jermin.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 8.

THE WICKED COMING IN THE STEAD OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

I. This proverb must be fulfilled from the nature of the case. If a vessel is being steered straight for the rocks nothing can prevent her from being dashed upon them except a change of course. Nothing else can avert the catastrophe, unless a supernatural power removes the rock out of the way. This last cannot be; the first alternative rests with the will of the commander. If another vessel is going in an opposite direction she must as necessarily escape the doom to which the other is hastening. There is nothing of fate about their different destinies, they are the outcome of a choice of opposite courses. So with the opposite ends of the righteous and the wicked. Deliverance for the first, an inheritance of trouble for the latter, are the result of no arbitrary fate but the outcome of their pursuing opposite courses. Unless God will remove His everlasting laws out of the universe it must be so, and to expect Him to do that is to expect Him to change His nature, which would be a much more dire calamity than the trouble which comes upon the wicked from his course of wilful opposition to righteousness. For in this life it is always open to a man to turn round, to change his course, and so to escape the shipwreck of his existence upon the rocks of perdition. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon' (Isa. lv. 7). God will not remove His righteous laws out of the sinner's way, but He holds out every inducement and encouragement to the transgressor to come into harmony with them.

II. The proverb has received abundant illustrations in the history of our race. Pharaoh designed to drive the Israelitish nation into the Red Sea and so to destroy them. God delivered them, and their oppressors came in their stead." Daniel's persecutors planned to take his life," the righteous man was delivered out of trouble," and his wicked slanderers met with the death to which they had hoped to bring him. Instances might be multiplied in which this truth has been illustrated both in Scripture history and in more modern times.

OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS.

It is a "righteous thing" with God (2 Thess. i. 6, 7), though to men it seems an incredible paradox, and a news far more wonderful than accept able, that there should be such a transmutation of conditions on both sides, to contraries.-Trapp.

Though the afflictions of good men seem sharp and grievous, yet they are not perpetual. Before ever God bring His into troubles, He appointeth how they shall be preserved in them, and pass through them, and get out of

them. He doth as well see their arrival, as their launching forth, and the end of the boisterous storms which they must endure as well as the beginning and entrance thereof.-Dod.

In this world trouble is a common place, as the world is, both to the righteous and the wicked, and it beseems them both. The one has his proper and due place, the other has his place of honour. For, as St. Basil saith, He that saith that tribulation doth not beseem a righteous man,