Proverbs 4:14-19 - Homilies By W. Clarkson

The prudence of piety

We may say concerning piety or virtue—the wisdom which is from God includes both—that the essence of it is in right feeling, in loving him who is the Holy One and that which is the right and admirable thing, and in hating that which is evil and base; that the proof of it is in right acting—in going those things and those only which are good and honourable, which God's Word and our own conscience approve; and that the prudence of it is in these two things which are implied in our text.

I. CHERISHING A WHOLESOME HORROR OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN . There is an insensibility and an ignorance which passes for courage, and gets a credit which is not its due. Those who do not take the trouble to know what the issues of any line of conduct are, and who go fearlessly forward, are not brave; they are only blind. We ought to know all we can learn of the consequences of our behaviour, of the end in which the path we are treading terminates. The prudent man wilt see and shrink from the consequences of evil; and if he open his eyes or consult those who can tell him, he will find that they are simply disastrous.

1 . For sin is mischievous in its spirit; it gloats over the ruin which it works; it finds a horrible delight in doing harm to human souls ( Proverbs 4:16 , Proverbs 4:17 ).

2 . And it succeeds in its shameful design. It does "mischief;" it makes men "to fall." It causes spiritual decline, decay, corruption—the worst of all mischief; it leads purity, sobriety, honesty, truthfulness, reverence, love, to fall down into the ruinous depths of lasciviousness, intemperance, dishonesty, falsehood, profanity, hard-heartedness.

3 . It leads down to a darkness and a death of which it did not dream ( Proverbs 4:19 ). It sinks into that awful soul-blindness in which the "eye is evil," in which the very "light is darkness" ( Matthew 6:23 ), in which the moral judgment, all perverted, leads astray. "The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble." Their powers of moral distinction are gone; they are "altogether gone astray." Piety, virtue, may well in godly prudence shrink with wholesome horror from this.

II. CAREFUL AVOIDANCE OF THE WAY OF THE WICKED , and so of the path of temptation.

1 . True it is that we must be often found in perilous places at the call of daily duty.

2 . True that at the invitation of mercy we shall sometimes be found there.

3 . But it is also true that the wise will not needlessly expose themselves to the assaults of sin. They will refrain from so doing both because