vocations do not alienate his affection from us. This is our beloved, and this is our friend. In him we will trust, and to him we will devote our hearts.

Ver. 18. A man void of understanding striketh hands, and becometh surety in the presence of his friend.

Solomon warns us often against rash suretiship, and yet many professors of religion have opened the mouths of enemies by the temptations into which they have run themselves by forgetting this exhortation. Why should religion bear the blame of what it testifies so often against, that every man who reads this book must observe it, and have it in his mind, unless he wilfully despises the instructions of the wise man? If we would hearken to Solomon, he would teach us to be richer and happier, as well as better Christians *. Ver. 19. He loveth transgression that loveth strife; and he that exalteth his gate seeketh destruction.

Pride is a destructive sin, in whatever form it discovers itself; and the Spirit of God, by Solomon, gives us many warnings of the danger of it, and of those sins that are produced by it.

Only by pride cometh contention, and from the love of contention spring an innumerable multitude of iniquities; for as charity is productive of every virtue, so that he who loveth another hath fulfilled the law, and will do no hurt to his neighbour; so he that takes pleasure in strife hath broken the whole law, and is ready to do every bad thing, for where there is envying and strife, there is confusion and every evil work.

But who is the man that loveth contention? Those who are engaged in it, allege that they love peace as much as any man, but they are forced into it by the perverseness of other men. However, when men are almost always engaged in strife, they afford too strong

Chap. vi. 1. &c.

presumption that they love it. If a man is always engaged in law-suits, or in angry contentions with his neighbours either about religion or politics, or those things that concern his private interest, he is surely a lover of strife. It is an evidence no less clear of love to contention, when persons seize every opportunity for beginning a quarrel, and cannot make the least sacrifice of self-will, or interest, or humour, for the sake of peace. Now, if strife be productive of so many sins, it must be attended with a proportionable train of miseries, and therefore our interest as well as duty requires us to avoid every thing that may lead us into angry disputes. If we love God, we will love our brother also; and if we live in the faith of reconciliation with God, we will follow peace with all men.

The love of expensive vanities, is another sign or pride, and is likewise censured by the wise man. He that exalts his gate, and builds to himself a house magnificent beyond what his station requires, or his circumstances allow, seeketh destruction. The slothful man exposes himself to misery; but he waits for it till it comes upon him like a traveller. The aspiring man, that cannot be happy without a stately dwelling, and a splendid manner of living beyond what his estate will bear, seeks for destruction, and sends a coach and six to bring it to him. Let us hate pride, for it makes a man miserable in this world as well as the next. It makes men unsatisfied with the condition allotted them by God, and tempts them to waste their substance, and to cheat and oppress their neighbours, in order to gratify their own ambitious disposition, and leads on the person in whom it reigns, to the practice of many sins which bring down destruction from the Almighty *.

Ver. 20. He that hath a froward heart findeth no good; and he that hath a perverse tongue falleth into mischief.

A man of a froward and perverse spirit, makes use of art and dissimulation to gain his ends, and thinks himself so wise, that he has no reason to fear a disap. pointment; but he indulges himself in an error which the whole scripture condemns, and which no man of real honesty can fall into, that some profit may be gained by sin.

The froward in heart is an abomination to the Lord *. And the Lord is the universal Ruler, and will never suffer a man to enjoy any solid satisfaction in that which he detests. He will most certainly frustrate those expectations which are founded upon a contempt of his majesty, and a presumptuous notion that the power and wisdom of a creature can successfully oppose the Creator †.

The froward in heart and in tongue will not only meet with a total disappointment of his hopes, but fall into extreme misery. And this is the most deplorable condition that we can imagine, when one is not only divested of every thing comfortable and good, but loaded with the opposite miseries. This severe punishment is begun in this world, as experience teaches every day, and it is consummated in that punishment of loss and of sense, which the wicked suffer in the everlasting world.

How foolish are the men whose wisdom lies in a skill to do evil! Their own feet cast them into a snare, and their own tongues, by which they hope to execute their wicked contrivances, fall upon themselves, and grind them to powder. Honesty and integrity is our best wisdom; and upright men walk on firm ground,

Chap. xi. 20.

+ Psal. xii. 4, 5. Job v. 12, 13.

when the men that boast of their crooked arts fall into

their own snares.

Ver. 21. He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow; and the father of a fool hath no joy.

Men's

How little are earthly objects to be trusted! families are the sources of their expected joys, and the birth of children is generally accounted a joyful occasion; but many children are the causes of grief, and not of joy, to their parents. By their folly they are a disgrace to those that might have expected better returns of their fondness, and fill those evil days of old age with additional pains, when it was expected that the sight of them would have relieved every pang. He that has the unhappiness to be father to a fool, hath no joy, either in his son or in any thing else, for every pleasure is deadened, and every distress embittered and poisoned, by the sight of a child despising the very instrument of his existence, and treasuring up endless miseries for himself.

Unnatural are those children who make their parents miserable, by means of that fond affection to their unworthy children, of which they cannot divest themselves. Unwise are those parents who look for comfort to their children, and do not look above them to the Father of lights, who alone makes any thing a blessing to us. It must greatly increase the affliction of those who meet with this sore calamity, to have occasion of reflecting, that they have been careless in using those means that might have driven away foolishness from their children, or in praying for that blessing on which the success of all means depends.

Ver. 22. A merry heart doeth good like a medicine ; but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

The intemperate mirth of sensualists is a slow poison to the body, and therefore cannot be here meant. Innocent amusement is here allowed, as a mean of

promoting or preserving health; only it must not be turned into a business, to consume our days in vanity, and make our health useless to us; but the mirth principally recommended by the inspired writer, is that cheerfulness which religion bestows; for he tells us, that the ways of wisdom are all pleasantness and peace, and that sorrow and wretchedness are inseparable attendants of sin.

The things of this world are so incapable of affording permanent satisfaction, that Solomon wrote almost a whole book to shew that they are vanity and vexation of spirit; but wisdom, he tells us, makes the face to shine, and inspires the heart with pleasure.

A merry heart diffuses its influence through the body, and preserves its vigour and health, or tends to restore it where it is lost; but a broken spirit crushes the frame of the body, enfeebles its powers, makes the flesh to wither and decay, and burns the bones like an hearth. Christ himself, in his agony, felt the effect of strong sorrows in his flesh.

Every thing that tends to spread a gloom over the mind, is to be avoided. There are cases, indeed, where we are called to mourn and weep, but that grief which religion requires and infuses, is not dangerous to the animal frame, because it brings the sweetest joys in its train. It is sin that brings the most dangerous sorrows along with it, and not repentance, which is a medicine to remove the cause of the worst distempers. When David was stubborn, and did not confess his sins, his bones waxed old, because of his roaring all the day long. But when he confessed his sin, the joys of pardon healed his bones, and renewed his vigour, so that he praised God, not only for par doning all his iniquities, but likewise for renewing his age like the eagle's.