THE FOOL AND HIS SPORT

Thomas Adams used much latin when he wrote. I do not understand latin, so edit it out, but if you need the latin, it can be found on monergism .com

THE FOOL AND HIS SPORT
Fools make a mock at sin.—PROV. 14:9.
THE Proverbs of Solomon are so many select aphorisms, or divinely
moral says, without any mutual dependence one upon another.
Therefore to study a coherence, were to force a marriage between
unwilling parties. The words read spend themselves on a description
of two things—I. The fool; and, II. His sport. The fool is the wicked
man; his sport, pastime, or bauble is sin. Mocking is the medium or
connexion that brings together the fool and sin. Thus he makes
himself merry; they meet in mocking. The 'fool makes a mock at sin.'

I. FOOLS.—The fool is the wicked. An ignorant heart is always a
sinful heart, and a man without knowledge is a man without grace.
So Tamar to Amnon under his ravishing hands: 2 Sam. 13:13, 'Do not
this folly;' if thou doest it, 'thou shalt be as one of the fools in Israel.'
Ignorance cannot excusare à toto; wilful, not à tanto. 2 Thess. 1:8,
'Christ shall come in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that
know not God.' The state of these fools is fearful. Like hooded hawks,
they are easily carried by the infernal falconer to hell. Their lights are
out, how shall their house scape robbing? These fools have a
knowledge, but it is to do evil, Jer. 4:22. They have also a knowledge
of good, ,—they know, but they refuse it. So God justly quits them; but gives them
: Matt. 7:23, 'I know you not: depart from me,
ye workers of iniquity.' A man may be a fool two ways: by knowing
too little, or too much.
1. By knowing too little: when he knoweth not those things whereof
he cannot be ignorant, and do well. 1 Cor. 2:2, 'I determined not to
know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.' But
every man saith he knows Christ. If men knew Christ's love in dying
for them, they would love him above all things. How do they know
him that love their money above him? Nemo vere novit Christum,
qui non vere amat Christum,—No man knows Christ truly that loves
him not sincerely. If men knew Christ, that he should be judge of
quick and dead, durst they live so lewdly? Non novit Christum qui
non odit peccatum,—He never knew Christ that doth not hate
iniquity. Some attribute too much to themselves, as if they would
have a share with Christ in their own salvation. Nesciunt et Christum
et seipsos,—They are ignorant of both Christ and themselves. Others
lay too much on Christ, all the burden of their sins; which they can
with all possible voracity swallow down, and with blasphemy vomit
up again upon him. But they know not Christ who thus seek to divide
,—his blood from his water; and they shall fail of
justification in heaven that refuse sanctification upon earth.

2. By knowing too much. When a man presumes to know more than
he ought, his knowledge is apt to be pursy and gross, and must be
kept low. Rom. 12:16, 'Mind not high things,' saith the Apostle.
Festus slandered Paul, Acts 26:24, that 'much learning had made
him mad.' Indeed, it might have done, if Paul had been as proud of
his learning as Festus was of his honour. This is the 'knowledge that
puffeth up,' 1 Cor. 8:1. It troubles the brain, like undigested meat in
the stomach, or like the scum that seethes into the broth. To avoid
this folly, Paul forbids us to 'be wise in our own conceits,' Rom.
12:16: whereof I find two readings, 'Be not wise in yourselves;' and
'Be not wise to yourselves.'
Not in yourselves. Conjure not your wit into the circle of your own
secret profit. We account the simple, fools; God accounts the crafty,
fools. He that thinks himself wise is a fool ipso facto. It was a modest
speech that fell from the philosopher:* Si quando fatuo delectari
volo, non est mihi longe quærendus; me video. Therefore Christ
pronounced his woes to the Pharisees, his doctrines to the people.
The first entry to wisdom is —to know thy ignorance. Sobriety is the measure for knowledge,
as the gomer was for manna. Curiosity is the rennet that turns our milk into curds.
Not to yourselves. 'Let thy fountain be dispersed abroad,' saith the
wisest king, Prov. 5:16; communicate thy knowledge. Matt. 5:15,
Christians must be like lights, that waste themselves for the good of
those in God's house.
—He that will be wise only to himself takes the ready way to turn
fool. —The closer we keep our knowledge, the likelier we are to lose it. Standing water soon
puddles; the gifts of the mind, if they be not employed, will be
impaired. Every wicked man is a fool; by comparing their properties:
—
(1.) It is a fool's property futura non prospicere, to have no foresight
of future things. So he may have from hand to mouth, he sings care
away. So the grasshopper sings in harvest when the ant labours; and
begs at Christmas when the ant sings. The wicked takes as little care
what shall become of his soul, as the natural fool what shall become
of his body. Modo potiar, saith the epicure,—Let me have pleasure
now; 'It is better to a living dog than to a dead lion,' Eccles. 9:4. They
do not in fair weather repair their house against storms; nor in time
of peace provide spiritual armour against the day of war. They watch
not; therefore 'the day of the Lord shall come upon them as a thief in
the night,' and spoil them of all their pleasures. The main business of
their soul is not thought of; nor dream they of an audit, till they be
called by death away to their reckoning.

(2.) It is a fool's property to affect things hurtful to himself. Ludit
cum spinis,—he loves to be playing with thorns. Neither yet hath that which hurt him taught him caution, but he
more desperately desires his own mischief. The wicked do strongly
appropriate to themselves this quality.
—They hover to dally with their own vexation who else would
dote on the world; and hover like wasps about the gallipot, till for
one lick of honey they be drowned in it. What is your ambition, O ye
world-affecters, saith Augustine, but to be affected of the world?
What do you seek,—but through many dangers to find more?
through easier to find the worst of all? Like that doting Venetian, for
one kiss of that painted harlot, to live her perpetual slave. The world
was therefore called the fool's paradise; there he thinks to find
heaven, and there he sells it to the devil.
—'They haste as a bird to the snare,' Prov. 7:23. The devil doth but
hold vanity as a sharp weapon against them, and they run full breast
upon it. They need no enemies; let them alone, and they will kill
themselves. So the envious pines away his own marrow; the
adulterer poisons his own blood; the prodigal lavisheth his own
estate; the drunkard drowns his own vital spirit. Wicked men make
war upon themselves with the engines of death.

(3.) It is a fool's property to prefer trifles and toys before matters of
worth and weight. The fool will not give his bauble for the king's
exchequer. The wicked prefer bodies of dust and ashes to their soul
of eternal substance; this sin-corrupted and time-spent world, to the
perfect and permanent joys of heaven; short pleasures to everlasting
happiness; a puff of fame before a solid weight of glory. What folly
can be more pitiable, than to forsake corn for acorns; a state of
immortality for an apple, as Adam did; a birthright, with all the
privileges, for a mess of pottage, belly-cheer, as Esau did; a kingdom
on earth, yea, in heaven too, for asses, as Saul did; all portion in
Christ, for bacon, as the Gergesites did, Matt. 22; a royalty in heaven
for a poor farm on earth, as the bidden guest did! This is the worldling's folly:
To esteem grace and glory less than farms, oxen, wives; manna than
onions; mercy than vanity; God than idols. They may be fitly
paralleled with the prodigal, Luke 15. He forsook,

[1.] His father's house for a strange country: these the church, God's house, for the
world; a place wherein they should be strangers, and wherein, I am sure, they shall not be long dwellers.

[2.] His father's inheritance for
a bag of money: so these will not tarry for their heritage in heaven,
but take the bags which Mammon thrusts into their hands on the
present. Who but a fool will refuse the assured reversion of some
great lordship, though expectant on the expiration of three lives, for
a ready sum of money not enough to buy the least stick on the
ground? This is the worldling's folly, rather to take a piece of slipcoin in
hand than to trust God for the invaluable mass of glory.

[3.] He forsakes his loving friends for harlots, creatures of spoil and
rapine: so these the company of saints for the sons of Belial; those
that sing praises, for those that roar blasphemies.

[4.] Lastly, the bread in his father's house for husks of beans: so these leave Christ,
the true bread of life, for the draff which the swine of this world puddle in.
Here is their folly, to fasten on transient delights, and to neglect the 'pleasures at the right hand of God for evermore,' Ps.
16:11.

(4.) It is a fool's property to run on his course with precipitation. Yet
can he not outrun the wicked, whose 'driving is like Jehu's, the son or
Nimshi,' 2 Kings 9:20: he driveth as if he were mad; as if he had
received that commission, 'Salute no man by the way.' 'The wise man
seeth the plague, and hideth himself; but the fool runneth on, and is
punished,' Prov. 27:12. He goes, he runs, he flies; as if God, that rides
upon the wings of the wind, should not overtake him. He may pass
apace, for he is benefited by the way; which is smooth, without rubs,
and down a hill, for hell is a bottom, Prov. 15:24. . Haste might be good, if the way were good, and good speed
added to it. But this is cursus celerrimus præter viam. He needs not run fast;
—the fool may come soon enough to that place from whence he must
never return. Thus you see the respondency of the spiritual to the
natural fool in their qualities. Truly the wicked man is a fool. So
Solomon expounds the one by the other: Eccles. 7:17, 'Be not
overmuch wicked, neither be thou foolish; why shouldest thou die
before thy time?'
FOOLS.—Observe, this is plurally and indefinitely spoken. The
number is not small; stultorum plena sunt omnia. Christ's 'flock is
little,' but Satan's kingdom is of large bounds. Plurima pessima,—vile
things are ever most plentiful. Wisdom flies, like the rail, alone; but
fools, like partridges, by whole coveys. There is but one truth, but
innumerable errors; which should teach us—

1. Not to 'follow a multitude in evil.' In civil actions it is good to do as
the most; in religious, to do as the best. It shall be but poor comfort
in hell, s, And thou shalt speed as others.

2. To bless God that we are none of the many; as much for our grace,
whereby we differ from the fools of the world, as for our reason,
whereby we differ from the fools of nature.
Now as these fools are many, so of many kinds. There is the sad fool
and the glad fool; the haughty fool, and the naughty fool:—

1. The sad or melancholy fool is the envious, that repines at his
brother's good. An enemy to all God's favours, if they fall besides
himself. A man of the worst diet; for he consumes himself, and
delights in pining, in repining. He is ready to quarrel with God
because his neighbour's flock scape the rot. He cannot endure to be
happy, if with company. Therefore envy is called by Prosper,* ,—the vexation of a
languishing mind, arising from another's welfare.
So many as the envied hath praisers, hath the envious tormentors.

2. The glad fool—I might say the mad fool—is the dissolute; who,
rather than he will want sport, makes goodness itself his minstrel.
His mirth is to sully every virtue with some slander, and with a jest to
laugh it out of fashion. His usual discourse is filled up with boasting
parentheses of his old sins; and though he cannot make himself
merry with their act, he will with their report: as if he roved at this
mark, to make himself worse than he is. If repentance do but proffer
him her service, he kicks her out of doors; his mind is perpetually
drunk; and his body lightly dies, like Anacreon, with a grape in his
throat. He is stung of that serpent, whereof he dies laughing.

3. The haughty fool is the ambitious; who is ever climbing high
towers, and never forecasting how to come down. Up he will, though
he fall down headlong. He is weary of peace in the country, and
therefore comes to seek trouble at court, where he haunts great men,
as his great spirit haunts him. When he receives many
disappointments, he flatters himself still with success. His own fancy
persuades him, as men do fools, to shoot away another arrow,
thereby to find the first; so he loseth both. And, lastly, because his
pride will admit of no other punisher, he becomes his own torment;
and having at first lost his honesty, he will now also lose his wits: so
truly becomes a fool.

4. The naughty fool is the covetous. This is the folly that Solomon
'saw under the sun.' You heard before of a merry fool, but the very
fool of all is the avarous; for he will lose his friends, starve his body,
damn his soul, and have no pleasure for it. So saith the prophet, Jer.
17:11, 'He shall leave his riches in the midst of his days, and at his
end shall be a fool.' He wastes himself to keep his goods from waste;
he eats the worst meat, and keeps his stomach ever chiding. He
longs, like a fool, for everything he sees; and at last—have what he desired, never what he desires.
He fears not the day of judgment, except for preventing the date of
some great obligation. You would think it were petty treason to call a
rich man fool; but He doth so that dares justify it: Luke 12:20, 'Thou
fool, this night shall they fetch away thy soul from thee; then whose
shall those things be which thou hast provided?'

II. We have anatomized the fool; let us behold his sport: 'He maketh a mock at sin.'
The fathers call this ,—the lowest
degree of sin, and the very threshold of hell. It is sedes pestilentiæ,
—'the scorner's chair,' Ps. 1:1, wherein the ungodly sits, blaspheming
God and all goodness. —No man becomes worst at first. This is no sudden evil. Men are born sinful; they make
themselves profane. Through many degrees they climb to that height
of impiety. This is an extreme progress, and almost the journey's end
of wickedness. Improbo lætari affectu. Thus Abner calls fighting a
sport: 2 Sam. 2:14, 'Let the young men arise and play before us.'
'They glory in their shame,' saith the Apostle, Phil. 3:19; as if a
condemned malefactor should boast of his halter. 'Fools make a mock at sin.'
We shall the more clearly see, and more strongly detest, this
senseless iniquity, if we consider the object of the fool's sport—sin.

1. Sin, which is so contrary to goodness; and though to man's corrupt
nature pleasing, yet even abhorred of those sparks and cinders which
the rust of sin hath not quite eaten out of our nature as the creation
left it. The lewdest man, that loves wickedness as heartily as the devil
loves him, yet hath some objurgations of his own heart; and because
he will not condemn his sin, his heart shall condemn him. The most
reprobate wretch doth commit some contraconscient iniquities, and
hath the contradiction of his own soul, by the remnants of reason left
in it. If a lewd man had the choice to be one of those two emperors,
Nero or Constantine; who would not rather be a Constantine than a
Nero? The most violent oppressor that is cruel to others, yet had
rather that others should be kind to him than cruel. The bloodiest
murderer desires that others should use him gently, rather than
strike, kill, or butcher him. Nature itself prefers light to darkness;
The most rigid usurer, if he should come before a severe judge, would be glad of mercy,
though himself will shew none to his
poor bondmen.

It is then first a contranatural thing to 'make a mock at sin.'
2. Sin, which sensibly brings on present judgments. 'Thou art made
whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee,' John 5:14.
Sin procured the former, and that was grievous—thirty-eight years
bedrid: sin is able to draw on a greater punishment; 'Lest a worse
thing come unto thee.' If I should turn this holy book from one end to
the other; if I should search all fathers, yea, all writers, whether
divine or human, I should evince this conclusion, that sin hales on
judgment. Pedissequus sceleris supplicium. If there be no fear of
impiety, there is no hope of impunity. Our Machiavellian politicians
have a position, the greatest wickedness is begun with
danger, gone through with reward. Let the philosopher stop their
mouths: Scelus aliguis tutum, nemo securum tulit,—Some guilty men
have been safe, none ever secure.
This every eye must see. Let adultery plead that nature is the
encourager and directer of it, and that she is unjust to give him an
affection, and to bar him the action; yet we see it plagued, to teach us
that the sin is of a greater latitude than some imagine it: unclean,
, perjured. Broad impudence, contemplated bawdery, an eye full of whores, are things but jested at:
the committers at last find them no jest, when God pours vengeance on the body, and wrath on
the naked conscience.
Let drunkenness stagger in the robes of good-fellowship, and shroud
itself under the wings of merriment, yet we see it have the
punishment, even in this life. It corrupts the blood, drowns the
spirits, beggars the purse, and enricheth the carcase with surfeits: a
present judgment waits upon it. He that is a thief to others is at last a
thief also to himself, and steals away his own life. God doth not ever
forbear sin to the last day, nor shall the bloody ruffian still escape;
but his own blood shall answer some in present, Ps. 55:23, and his
soul the rest eternally. Let the Seminary pretend a warrant from the
Pope to betray and murder princes, and build his damnation on their
tetrical grounds, which have
,—little reason, less honesty, no religion; yet we see
God reveals their malicious stratagems, and buries them in their own
pit. Percy's* head now stands sentinel where he was once a pioneer.
If a whole land flow with wickedness, it escapes not a deluge of
vengeance. For England, have not her bowels groaned under the
heavy pestilence? If the plague be so common in our mouths, how
should it not be common in our streets? With that plague wherewith
we curse others, the just God curseth us. We shall find in that
imperial state of Rome, that till Constantine's time almost every
emperor died by treason or massacre; after the receiving of the
gospel, none except that revolter Julian. Let not sin then be made a
sport or jest, which God will not forbear to punish even in this life.

3. But if it bring not present judgment, it is the more fearful. The less
punishment wickedness receives here, the more is behind. God
strikes those here whom he means to spare hereafter; and corrects
that son which he purposeth to save. But he scarce meddles with
them at all whom he intends to beat once for all. The almond-tree is
forborne them who are bequeathed to the boiling pot. There is no rod
to scourge such in present, so they go with whole sides to hell. The
purse and the flesh scapes, but the soul pays for it. This is
misericordia puniens, a grievous mercy, when men are spared for a
while that they may be spilled for ever. This made that good saint
cry, Lord, here afflict, cut, burn, torture me, ut in æternum parcas,*—
so that for ever thou wilt save me. No sorrow troubles the wicked, no
disturbance embitters their pleasures; but 'remember,' saith
Abraham to the merry-lived rich man, 'thou wert delighted, but thou
art tormented,' Luke 16:25. Tarditas supplicii gravitate pensatur; and
he will strike with iron hands that came to strike with leaden feet.
Tuli, nunquid semper feram? No; their hell-fire shall be so much the
hotter, as God hath been cool and tardy in the execution of his
vengeance. This is a judgment for sin that comes invisible to the
world, insensible to him on whom it lights: to be 'given over to a
reprobate mind, to a hard and impenitent heart,' Rom. 1:28, 2:5. If
anything be vengeance, this is it. I have read of plagues, famine,
death, come tempered with love and mercy: this never but in anger.
Many taken with this spiritual lethargy, sing in taverns, that should
howl with dragons; and sleep out Sabbaths and sermons, whose
awaked souls would rend their hearts with anguish. 'Fools,' then,
only 'make a mock at sin.'

4. Sin, that shall at last be laid heavy on the conscience: the lighter
the burden was at first, it shall be at last the more ponderous. The
wicked conscience may for a while lie asleep; but tranquillitas ista
tempestas est, † —this calm is the greatest storm. The mortalest
enemies are not evermore in pitched fields, one against the other; the
guilty may have a seeming truce, true peace they cannot have. A
man's debt is not paid by slumbering; even while thou sleepest, thy
arrearages run on. If thy conscience be quiet without good cause,
remember that —a just war is
better than unjust peace. The conscience is like a fire under a pile of
green wood—long ere it burn, but once kindled, it flames beyond
quenching. It is not pacifiable whiles sin is within to vex it; the hand
will not cease throbbing so long as the thorn is within the flesh. In
vain he striveth to feast away cares, sleep out thoughts, drink down
sorrows, that hath his tormentor within him. When one violently
offers to stop a source of blood at the nostril, it finds a way down the
throat, not without hazard of suffocation. The stricken deer runs into
the thicket, and there breaks off the arrow; but the head sticks still
within him, and rankles to death. Flitting and shifting ground gives
way to further anguish. The unappeased conscience will not leave
him till it hath shewed him hell; nor then neither. Let then this fool
know, that his now seared conscience shall be quickened; his
deathbed shall smart for this; and his amazed heart shall rue his old
wilful adjournings of repentance. How many have there raved on the
thought of their old sins, which in the days of their hot lust they
would not think sins! Let not, then, the 'fool make a mock at sin.'

5. Sin, which hath another direful effect of greater latitude, and
comprehensive of all the rest: —it provokes God to anger.
The 'wrath of a king is a messenger of death;' what is the
wrath of the King of kings! 'For our God is a consuming fire,' Heb.
12:29. If the fire of his anger be once thoroughly incensed, all the
rivers in the south are not able to quench it. What pillar of the earth,
or foundation of heaven, can stand when he will shake them? He that
in his wrath can open the jaws of earth to swallow thee, sluice out
floods from the sea to drown thee, rain down fire from heaven to
consume thee. Sodom, the old world, Korah, drank of these wrathful
vials. Or, to go no further, he can set at jar the elements within thee,
by whose peace thy spirits are held together; drown thee with a
dropsy bred in thy own flesh; burn thee with a pestilence begotten in
thy own blood; or bury thee in the earthly grave of thine own
melancholy. Oh, it is a fearful thing 'to fall into the hands of the
living God!' It is then wretchedly done, thou fool, to jest at sin that
angers God, who is able to anger all the veins of thy heart for it.

6. Sin, which was punished even in heaven. —2 Pet. 2:4, 'God spared not the angels that
sinned, but cast them down to hell.' It could bring down angels from
heaven to hell; how much more men from earth to hell? If it could
corrupt such glorious natures, what power hath it against dust and
ashes? Art thou better or dearer than the angels were? Doest thou
flout at that which condemned them? Go thy ways, make thyself
merry with thy sins; mock at that which threw down angels. Unless
God give thee repentance, and another mind, thou shalt speed as the
lost angels did; for God may as easily cast thee from the earth as he
did them from heaven.

7. Sin, which God so loathed that he could not save his own elect
because of it, but by killing his own Son. It is such a disease that
nothing but the blood of the Son of God could cure it. He cured us by
taking the receipts himself which we should have taken. He is first
cast into a sweat; such a sweat as never man but he felt, when the
bubbles were drops of blood. Would not sweating serve? He comes to
incision; they pierce his hands, his feet, his side, and set life itself
abroach. He must take a potion too, as bitter as their malice could
make it, compounded of vinegar and gall. And lastly, he must take a
stranger and stronger medicine than all the rest—he must die for our
sins. Behold his harmless hands pierced for the sins our harmful
hands had committed! his undefiled feet, that never stood in the
ways of evil, nailed for the errors of our paths! He is spitted on, to
purge away our uncleanness; clad in scornful robes, to cover our
nakedness; whipped, that we might escape everlasting scourges. He
would thirst, that our souls might be satisfied; the Eternal would die,
that we might not die eternally. He is content to bear all his Father's
wrath, that no piece of that burden might be imposed upon us; and
seem as forsaken a while, that we by him might be received for ever.
Behold his side become bloody, his heart dry, his face pale, his arms
stiff, after that the stream of blood had run down to his wounded
feet. Oh, think if ever man felt sorrow like him, or if he felt any
sorrow but for sin!
Now, is that sin to be laughed at that cost so much torment? Did the
pressure of it lie so heavy on the Son of God, and doth a son of man
make light of it? Did it wring from him sweat, and blood, and tears,
and unconceivable groans of an afflicted spirit; and dost thou, O fool,
jest at it? Alas! that which put our infinite Redeemer, God and man,
so hard to it, must needs swallow up and confound thee, poor sinful
wretch! It pressed him so far that he cried out, to the amazement of
earth and heaven, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'
Shall he cry for them, and shall we laugh at them? Thou mockest at
thy oppressions, oaths, sacrileges, lusts, frauds; for these he groaned.
Thou scornest his gospel preached; he wept for thy scorn. Thou
knowest not, O fool, the price of sin; thou must do, if thy Saviour did
not for thee. If he suffered not this for thee, thou must suffer it for
thyself. Passio æterna erit in te, si passio Æterni non erat pro te,—An
eternal passion shall be upon thee, if the Eternal's passion were not
for thee. Look on thy Saviour, and make not 'a mock at sin.'

8. Lastly, Sin shall be punished with death. You know what death is
the wages of it, Rom. 6:23; not only the first, but 'the second death,'
Rev. 20:6. Inexpressible are those torments, when a reprobate would
give all the pleasures that he ever enjoyed for one drop of water to
cool his tongue: where there shall be unquenchable fire to burn, not
to give light, save a glimmering;
*—to shew them the torments of others, and others the torments of themselves.
But I cease urging this terror; and had rather win you by the love of
God than by his wrath and justice. Neither need I a stronger
argument to dissuade you from sin than by his passion that died for
us being enemies. For if the agony, anguish, and heart-blood of Jesus
Christ, shed for our sins, will not move us to repentance, we are in a
desperate case. Now, therefore, I fitly leave Paul's adjuration, so
sweetly tempered, in your bosoms; commending that to your
consciences, and your consciences to God: Rom. 12:1, 'I beseech you,
brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God.'