Ver. 32.-Fatal prosperity. It is certainly not incumbent on the Christi~n p~eacher to maintain that prosperity is in itself an evil. This would involve a. strange parado;x:, since it must be confessed that we all desire prosperity by natural instinct, and seek it in some form, and when we have met with it are exhorted to be tba.nkful for it; all of which things would need to be deprecated if prosperity.were essentially evil. So far is it from bein~ thus represented in the Bible, that the Old Testament_ regards it as the reward of righteousness, and the New Testament as less important indeed and more full of danger, yet still as something to be enjoyed gratefully (see 1 Tim. iv. 4). But experience and revelation both warn us that it brings peculiar perils and temptations, and that there a.re some people to whom it is nothing less t_han fatal. I. CONSIDER WHO AilE TilE PERSONS TO WHOM PROSPERITY IS MOST FATAL. It does not a1Iect all alike. One man can stand calmly on a. steep height wp.ere another reels with giddiness. The success which is fatal to one may dev_eJop magnanimous qualities in another. It is not all prosperity, but the prosperity of fools, that is destructive. The character of the men rather than the inherent evil of the thing determines its effects. Note some of the cbaracters most injured by prosperity. 1. The wealc, who are moulded by circumstances instead of mastering them. If a: man is not· strong· enou"h to direct his course, but suffers himself to drift with the currents _of external events prosperity will lead him away into extravagance and folly. He only is safe under 'it who is independent of it. 2. The slwrt-sighted-men ~hose views of life _are exceptionally limited. '£hese people will b~ likely to expect too much from pros~enty, to for"'et that riches take to themselves wrngs and fly away. 3. Th.e empty-minded. If people have other resources than external possessions they arc the m1m:i free to make «oud use of those possessions. But if they have nothing else, _if they J:iave no "inner ~ity of the mind," if their li(? is all on the_ ~utside, prosperity w~U becoi:ne a. god ~nd the idolatry of it a fatal delutilun. 4-. The vicious. A .bad man will find m prosperity only enlarcred means for evil-doing, and so will increase his wickedness and bring the greater do~m upon his own head. 'l'o the intemperate, the ;profli~at~, the lovers of corrupt pknsures, prosperity is nothing less than a. curse. . II. CuNoIDEit THE WAY IN WHICH PROSPERITY BECOMES FATAL. 1. It ludes folly. La)3ruyere says, " As riches_ an~ favour ~oreake a. man, we discover him to ~e a ~ool, but nobody could find it out ID his prosperity;" and Hare remarks that "nothmg hides a blemish so completely as a cloth uf gold." But if folly is, hidden, it is unchecked, OII, J. 1-33,) THE PROVERBS. 23
and grows worso and ripens fatally. 2. It encourages indolence. Prosperity may afford ample means for generous occupation, but weak and foolish people are more likely to be satisfied with idleness and selr-indulgence when they find that all their wants are supplied without any effort on their own part. Then the disuse of faculties leads to the loss of them. Hence, as the pressure of adversity quickens our powers, the relaxation of prosperity tends to a sort of atrophy of them. 3. It ajfords opportunity for the exercise of bad qualities. Many men have tendencies to particular kinds of sin that are checked for want of opportUDity. Prosperity will give this with fatal results. '1. It induces sati.".faction with itself. Thus it quenches the thirst for deeper satisfaction. Lot, prosperous in Sodom, ceases to be a "pilgrim and stranger," and forgets to seek a " better country" till he is roused by the shock that puts an end to his worldly successes.