3–4. Total destruction will overwhelm
the lovers of flattery and pride, but meanwhile how they hector and fume! Well
did the apostle call them “raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame.”
Free-thinkers are generally very free-talkers, and they are never more at ease
than when railing at God’s dominion, and arrogating to themselves unbounded
license. They boastfully cry to God, who is lord over us? and hear not
the hollow voice of the evil one, who cries from the infernal lake, “I am your
lord, and right faithfully do you serve me.” Note that flattering lips
and the tongue that speaketh proud things are classed together. One
generally imagines that flatterers are such mean parasites, so cringing and
fawning, that they cannot be proud; but the wise will tell you that while all
pride is truly meanness, there is in the very lowest meanness no small degree
of pride. None are so detestably domineering as the little creatures who creep
into office by cringing to the great: those are bad times, indeed, in which
these obnoxious beings are numerous and powerful. No wonder the justice of God
in cutting off such injurious people is matter for a psalm. Men cannot tame the
tongues of such boastful flatterers, but the Lord’s remedy if sharp is sure,
and is an unanswerable answer to their swelling words of vanity.
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