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CHRISTIAN MORALITY, VIZ. CHASTITY,
&Ç. [SEAM. XXVIII.
charge against
it in various
parts of
the book
of
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
he
applies
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, to
blindness 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