Simon Patrick on the Proverbs
1683
13. "A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing." Unto which profanity as there wants not temptations, so there is none more dangerous, I think, which makes me mention it so often, than the lewd and impious adulteress; who is no less bold and importunate, than she is bewitching and powerful! to besot the minds of her stupid lovers; but perfectly ignorant of God and religion, and a stranger to all the principles of venue.
14. "For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city." Which she openly opposes, for (as if she would put a manifest affront upon them) in that very place where the ministers of wisdom call men to learn the fear of the Lord, she sits in state at the door of her house to divert their minds from all such thoughts, and drown them in sensual pleasures.
15. "To call passengers who go right on their ways." That's the very business of her life, to defeat all good designs; by drawing even those aside into her chambers of impurity, who were going straight forward to the schools of wisdom and goodness.
16. “Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him.”
Whose words she no less impudently than profane returns, and tells them, It is not she but wisdom and virtue that makes men fools; by confining their desires, and denying them the liberties which she invites to come and enjoy in her embraces: where their dullness shall learn this unknown secret.
17. "Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant." That there are no pleasures comparable to those, which a man gets by stealth from them to whom they properly belong: no morsel so sweet, as that which is forbidden; but having been long desired, he finds at last a private opportunity, to taste of without danger.
18. "But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell." But the poor deluded wretch considers not all this while (which have often already represented, and is all that I shall oppose to those sinful enticements) that she invites him to his utter ruin both of soul and body. And she sinks all those down who accept of her invitation, for the very bottom of that pit, where the old giants are, who corrupted mankind with such filthiness and violence, that they brought a deluge upon the earth (Gen. 6:4-5, 114There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. 5And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:4‑5)
11The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. (Genesis 6:11)).