44$ CHRISTIAN MORALITY, VIZ. CHASTITY, &Ç. [SEAM. XXVIII. charge against it in various parts of the bookof Proverbs, more especially in the vi. and vii. chapters, which he spends entirely upon this theme, and in the ii. the vi. and the ix. chapters, where heapplies near half of them to the same design ; wherein, after he has shewn the insinua- ting flatteries of the wanton woman, he never fails to give notice of some of the terrible attendants of those that follow her. " For her house inclines to death, and her paths unto the dead : none that go to her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life. There is scarce any iniquity that does so effectually harden the heart, and prevent all repentance, Let not thine heart therefore decline to her ways ; go not astray in her paths : For she has cast down many wounded, yea, ma- ny strong men have been slain by her : Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. This leads me to the next particular. III. If we consider the dismal effects of these impure practices, as they are recorded in sacred history, they should keep our souls awake, and keep us always to the watch, lest we be insnared. Behold Sampson the strong- est of men,, who was a holy Nazarite, and devoted to God ; how was he brought down shamefully from the height of his glory to prison and slavery, toblindness and death by the love of strange women! Behold the Jewish hero lying like a thoughtless fool upon the lap of Delilah, while the seven sacred locks of his head were shaven, and his divine strength went from him, for the Lord depart- ed ! Behold the wretched captive with his eyes bored out by the Philistines, bound with fetters of brass, and grind- ing in the prison-house ! Behold the man who was once their terror, now become their sport, their mockery, and their laughing stock in the house of Dagon their god : See him there crushed to pieces, and expiring under the weight of his own revenge upon his Philistine enemies ; and all this for the love of a harlot ! Mark the mischiefs, the calamities, and the bloodshed that pursued the house of David, when adultery and guilt in the matter of Uria.h had provoked his God ! See how sin and death made wide inroads into his household ! See there his son Amnon slain by his brother Absalom for the folly he had wrought in Israel, and the incest with his sister Tamar ! Think of Solomon, the wisest of men, whose heart was
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