It would not be complaisance, but cowardice--it would be a sinful softness which allowed affinity in taste to imperil your faith or your virtue. It would be the same sort of courtesy which, in the equatorial forest, for the wake of its beautiful leaf, lets the liana, with its strangling arms, run up the plantain or orange, and pays the forfeit in blasted boughs and total ruin. It would be the same sort of courtesy which, for fear of appearing rude or inhospitable, took into dock the infected vessel, or welcomed, not as a patient, but as a guest, the plague-stricken stranger.--_Jas. Hamilton._ Verses 16 and 17. The devil, their taskmaster, will not allow them time to sleep, which is very hard bondage.--_Trapp._ The character of the wicked is here drawn in their father's image--first sinners; then tempters. . . . Judas with his midnight torches (John xviii. 3); the early morning assembly of the Jewish rulers (Luke xxii. 66); the frenzied vow of the enemies of Paul (Acts xxiii. 12); and many a plot in after ages against the Church--all vividly pourtray this unwearied wickedness.--_Bridges._ The fearful stage of debasement when the tendency to sin is like the craving for stimulants, as a condition without which there can be no repose.--_Plumptre._ The trouble of others is the rest of the wicked.--_Jermin._ Just as bread forms the flesh, and makes it grow, according as it is eaten, so wickedness is the food of the spirit. "My meat is," says Christ, "to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work" (John iv. 34). "Thy words were found, and I did eat them" (Jer. xv. 16). So in chap. i. 31. "Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way"--the meaning being, that a man's way, spiritually considered, is all that forms him. He feeds upon it. If it is righteous, it nourishes him in life. If it is wicked, it nourishes him in death. He feeds on food of wickedness, and grows exactly in proportion as he sins. His very life is in its very self a deadly self-banqueting.--_Miller._ They sin, not of frailty, but of malice; not by occasion, as it were, but by an insatiable desire of committing wickedness.--_Muffet._ Verse 18. He sets forth betime in the morning and travels to meet the day.