Hosea 4:11

Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.

Ver. 11. Whoredom and wine and new wine have taken away the heart] i.e. Have robbed my people of themselves, and laid a beast in their room. Any lust allowed and wallowed in will eat out the heart of grace; and, at length, all grace out of the heart. Hence temporizers grow in time so sapless, heatless, and heartless to any good; some unmortifled lust or other there is, that, as a worm, lieth grubbing at the root, and makes all to wither; that, like a drone in a hive, proves a great waster; that, as a moth in fine cloth, consumes all; or, as the light of the sun, puts out the light of the fire: so here. But, above all others, sensual sins and fleshly lusts (such as are here instanced, whoredom and drunkenness) do war against the soul, 1 Peter 2:11, do take away the heart; they besot and infatuate a man, they rob him of his reason, and carry away his affections, &c. Grace is seated in the power of nature. Now these carnal sins disable nature; and so set it in a greater distance from grace. They make men, that formerly seemed to give light as a candle, to become as a snuff in a socket, drowned in the tallow; or as a quagmire, which swallows up the seed sown upon it, and yields no increase. Who are void of the Spirit but such as are sensual? Judges 1:18,19. And who are they that say unto God, Depart from us, but those that dance to the timbrel and harp, &c., Job 21:11. "They saw God, and did eat and drink," Exodus 24:11; that is, say some, though they had seen God, yet they turned again to sensual pleasures: as if it had reference to that eating, and drinking, and rising up to play, upon the dedication of their calf, which was presently after. Aristotle writeth of a parcel of ground in Sicily that sendeth forth such a strong smell of fragrant flowers to all the fields and grounds thereabouts, that no hound can hunt there; the scent is so confounded with the sweet smell of the flowers. Let us see to it that the pleasures of sin take not away all scent (and sense too) of heavenly delights; that the flesh, as a siren, befool not Wisdom's guests, and get them away from her, Proverbs 9:16; as Aelian tells of a whore that boasted that she could easily get all Socrates' scholars from him, but he could not recover one again from her. Indeed, none that go unto her return again, saith Solomon, Proverbs 2:19, for she gets their hearts from them: as David found, and Solomon complained. David was never his own worthy again, after he had fouled himself with that beastly sin. And Solomon, when he gave himself to wine and women (though his mother had sufficiently warned him, Pro 31:3-4), he quickly took hold of folly, Ecclesiastes 2:3, his sensualities drew out his spirits and dissolved him, and brought him to so low an ebb in grace, that many question his salvation. Bellarmine reckons him among reprobates: but I like not his judgment. Let ministers of all men (this is spoken of the priests chiefly, as some think) see to it that they flee fleshly lusts: that they exhort the younger women with chastity, as St Paul did Timothy: and drink (if any, yet but) a little wine for their health's sake: remembering that the sins of teachers are teachers of sins; and that their evil practices flee far upon those two dangerous wings of example and scandal. Ministers should be no winebibbers or ale stakes, 1 Timothy 3:3, ne magis solliciti de mero quam de vero, magis ament mundi delicias quam Christi divitias, lest being "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God," that should befall them that Solomon foretelleth, Proverbs 23:33, thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. Venter aestuans mere spumat in libidinem, a belly filled with wine foameth out filthiness, saith Jerome. Wine is the milk of Venus, saith Aristotle. Vina parant animos Veneri, saith Ovid. Whoredom is usually ushered in by drunkenness: hence they stand so close together in this text.