In the context the apostle applieth himself to the cure of
carnal desires; he hath mentioned one effect in the 1st verse, inward and
outward trouble, both in the world and in our own members; he now cometh to
another argument, the dissatisfaction and successlessness of those endeavours
which come from lust, they distract the head with cares, and engage the heart
in sins, and all to no purpose.
Ye lust, epithumeite, ye desire; but
usually it is taken, in an ill sense, for inordinate and passionate desires;
therefore it is well rendered ye lust.
And have not. - It may be taken two
ways; either you never obtained, or have now lost: male parta male dilabuntur -
ill means seldom arrive to possession, or, if they do, possession is soon lost.
Grotius supposeth the apostle intimateth the great want and dearth they
sustained in the days of Claudius, Acts xi. 28; all their violent practices
could not secure them against the inconveniences of those times. There is
somewhat a like expression with this, Prov. xiii. 4, 'The soul of the sluggard
desireth, and hath nothing.' But there the word speaketh of empty wishes and
lasy velleities, here of passionate desires; there of the soul of the sluggard,
here of the soul of the covetous.
Ye kill. - Calvin, Beza, Cajetan,
Erasmus, and others, read ye envy, though most Greek copies read as we do,
foneuete, ye kill. The other reading was the rather embraced, because the
charge seemed harsh to say, 'ye kill,' when, in the received exposition, the
wars here mentioned were only private contentions and lawsuits. But we cleared
it before, that wars is here taken properly; and therefore are not urged with
this inconvenience, and need not understand it, as Oecumenius doth, of
spiritual killing, as if the sense were, ye kill your own souls; or of
interpretative murder, mentioned 1 John iii. 15; but may expound it in the
usual and received import of the word, covetousness going as high as murder; as
1 Kings xxi. 1,2, and Prov. i. 19, 'Every one that is greedy of gain taketh
away the life of the owners thereof.' In those public tumults, occasioned by
their rapine and avarice, many were slain.
And desire to have, kai
zèloute, ye emulate, or are given to envy. The word is sometimes taken
in a good sense: 1 Cor. xiv. 2, 'Forasmuch as ye are emulous of spiritual
gifts;' the word is zèloute. There is a good emulation when we strive to
imitate them that excel in virtue, or to go beyond them; but there is also a
carnal emulation, which chiefly respecteth outward enjoyments, and noteth a
grief that any should enjoy any outward excellency equal with us or beyond us,
and a strong covetous or ambitious desire of appropriating that excellency to
ourselves. In the first there is malice, in the second covetousness: we take it
chiefly for the latter act of emulation, and therefore render it, ' ye desire
to have.' And cannot obtain, ou dunasthe epituchein. - The word is emphatical,
ye cannot arrive to happiness; that is, either to their happiness whom ye thus
envy or emulate, or else to the happiness you fancy, carnal desires being
either disappointed, or else increasing with enjoyment; it is a distemper that
will not be satisfied. The language of lust is give, give; it is an appetite
without bound or measure. If we had one world, yet we are not happy, we would
covet another: carnal desire is a gulf that is never filled up. Enjoyments seem
little, because there is still so much in hope; like children, that greedily
desire a thing, and when they have it despise it; or like drunkards, who are
always pouring in, yet do not quench, but inflame the appetite. See Eccles. iv.
8, and v. 10. Well may it be said, then, 'ye cannot obtain.' Carnal men possess
much, but have nothing.
Ye fight and war, and yet ye have not; that is,
though their violence and carnal desires had broken out so far as public
insurrections and tumults, yet still they were at a loss.
Because ye ask
not; that is, you do not use the lawful means of prayer. But how can it be
said, 'ye ask not,' since in the next verse he saith, 'Ye ask, and receive not,
because ye ask amiss'? I answer - (1.) Possibly here he may task one abuse,
there another; here that they hoped to help themselves by their own endeavours
without prayer, there that their prayers were conceived to a carnal purpose.
(2.) Because prayers not conceived in a humble and holy manner are no prayers;
lust's prayers are no prayers, eructations of lusts, not spiritual
supplications; a howling, Hosea vii. 14, which God regardeth not.
Obs.
1. Lustings are usually disappointed: 'Ye lust, and have not' God loveth to
cross desires when they are inordinate; his hand is straitened when our desires
are enlarged. Sometimes out of mercy. It is a blessing to meet with
disappointment in the ways of sin; you cannot have a worse judgment then to
have your carnal desires filled up. O unhappy men, whom God leaveth to
themselves without restraint! Prov. xiv. 14, 'The backslider in heart shall be
filled with his own ways, and a good man shall be satisfied from himself.' The
cursed apostate shall have enough of honours, and pleasures, and preferments.
It was a mercy to the church to be disappointed: 'She shall follow after her
lovers, but shall not overtake them; she shall seek them, but not find them;'
then 'she shall think of her former husband,' &c. Hosea ii. 7. Prosperous
and successful wickedness encourageth a man to go on in that way; some rubs are
an advantage. What we desire with greediness we enjoy with surfeit. To
disappoint and check our lust, God in mercy fenceth up our way with thorns.
Sometimes in judgment, that he may torment men by their own lusts; their
desires prove their just torture. The blood heated by intemperance, and the
heart enlarged by desire, are both of them sins that bring with them their own
punishment, especially when they meet with disappointment. Amnon and Ahab were
both sick, the one with lust, the other with covetousness.
Use 1.
Learn, then, that when the heart is too much set upon anything, it is the ready
way to miss it. Rachel's desires of children made her the more barren. The fool
talked of bigger barns, and that night his soul was taken away. When you forget
to subject your desires to God's will, you shall understand the sovereignty of
it. When the heart is strongly set upon a thing, there is no reservation of
God's good pleasure. We say, I will; and God saith, I will not. We will have
such a thing: 'I will go after my lovers,' as if we were petty gods. God will
have his will against your wills: 'I will fence thy way with thorns:' there is
an implicit and interpretative contest between us and God. Again, when desires
mistake in their object, they miss of their end. God cannot endure that the
same affection should be lavished on outward things which is only proper to
himself and his grace: 'violence' would become 'the kingdom.' Mat. xi. 12. When
Amnon is as sick for Tamar as the spouse is for Christ, it begetteth a
jealousy. Affections should rise according to the worth of the object: 'labour
not for the meat that perisheth, but the meat which endureth for ever,' 1 John
vi. Your industrious desires would become a better object; your strength should
be laid out for everlasting bread; that is a labour without sin, and without
disappointment.
Use 2. Be not always troubled when you cannot have
your will; you have cause to bless God. It is a mercy when carnal desires are
disappointed: say, as David, 1 Sam. xxv. 32, 'Blessed be the Lord God of
Israel, that sent thee to meet me this day.' Your hearts have been set on great
estates, and you thought, with the fool in the Gospel, of enlarging your barns
and exalting your nest, and of a sudden God came in and blasted all these
carnal projects. Bless God for such providences: how secure, or sensual, or
carnal would your spirit have been else! It was a mercy that 'the world was
crucified' to Paul, as well as Paul 'crucified to the world,' Gal. vi. 14. So
when you have been crossed in the pursuit of some lust or uncleanness, you may
afterward kneel down and adore the wisdom and reasonableness of such
providences. Possidonius in the life of Austin hath a memorable history. He
being to visit a place, with his guide mistook the way, fell into a bypath, and
so escaped the hands of some bloody Donatists that lay in ambush to take away
his life. God may lead you beside your intentions to avoid some dangerous sins
that would else have destroyed your souls: Hosea ii. 6, 'I will hedge up her
way with thorns.' Some cross providences may be a hedge to keep thee from
further misery.
Use 3. It teacheth you what reflections to make upon
yourselves in case of disappointment. When we miss any worldly thing that we
have desired, say, Have not I lusted after this? Did not I covet it too
earnestly? Absalom was the greater curse to David because he loved him too
much. Inordinate longings make the affections miscarry. Observe it, those
objects seldom prove happy that have too much of our hearts. We find it often
that men of great care are successless; they turn and wind hither and thither,
and are still like a door upon the hinges, in the same state and case: Ps.
cxxvii. 2, 'It is in vain to rise early, and go to bed late, and eat the bread
of sorrows.' A carking industry may be in vain and to no purpose; the success
of human endeavours lieth in God's blessing and concurrence; it is the
prerogative he hath reserved to himself; he keepeth it as a bridle over
mankind, to keep them in obedience, duty, and dependence. Providence doth
sometimes wean us from lust to grace, and showeth us that a blessing is sooner
had by faith than worldly care: Ps. xxxix. 6, 'Surely every man walketh in a
vain show; heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.' Man goeth
and cometh, and tosseth to and fro, and is gathering of riches, and increaseth
the heap, and God of a sudden scattereth all. How often have you seen a
covetous, carking man, like a mill-horse, still going round, and yet always in
the same place?
Obs. 2. That where there is covetousness there is
usually strife, envy, and emulation. Epithumeite, ye lust; foneuete, ye kill;
zèloute, ye emulate: these hang in a string. As there is a connection
and a cognation between virtues and graces - they go hand in hand - so there is
a link between sins, they seldom go alone. If a man be a drunkard he will be a
wanton; if he be covetous he will be envious. Christ cast out seven devils out
of one Mary Magdalene, and another man was possessed with a legion. When the
heart is brought under the power of any sin, it lieth equally obnoxious to all
sin. Covetousness may be known by its companions, strife, envy, and emulation:
Rom. i. 29, 'With covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy.' Self-love is the
root of all the three; it maketh us covet and desire what is good and
excellent, and it maketh us envy that others should enjoy it; and then to break
all bonds of duty and charity that we may wrest it from them. A covetous man is
a full wicked man; he enlargeth his desires for himself, but is much straitened
towards others; his eye is evil when God's hand is good. We often meet with
strange compounds and prodigies of vice and sin: 2 Tim. iii. 2, 'Covetous,
proud, boasters, lovers of themselves,' &c. It is said of Catiline that he
was monstrum ex variis diversisque et inter se pugnantibus naturis conflatum, a
compound and bundle of warring lusts and vices; so are many wicked men a
composition of many sins, which seem to differ in their essence, but spring
from the same root of corruption.
Obs. 3. From that ye lust, ye kill,
ye fight and war, - It is lust and covetousness that is most apt to trouble
neighbourhoods and vicinities. Solomon saith, Prov xv. 27, 'He that is greedy
of gain troubleth his own house;' we may add, yea, and all the houses near him;
he is truly 'the troubler of Israel.' Man is by nature a sociable creature, fit
for commerce. A covetous man is a wen of the body politic, not a member. A wen,
by sucking the nourishment that is due to other parts, groweth monstrous and
ugly in itself, and robbeth the body; so he being altogether for private gain,
perverteth that which is the cement of all confederacies and societies - a care
of the commonweal. Bodies are preserved when 'the members care for one
another:' 1 Cor. xii. 24. But this is not all. Covetousness is a base
affection, that will put a man upon the basest and most unworthy practices; men
given to it trouble their families by exacting all their labours, and trouble
human societies by unjust contentions; they quarrel with those that possess
that which they covet. Ahab spilt Naboth's blood for his vineyard's sake. They
promote public changes and innovations, that they may feather their nests with
the common spoils. Besides all this, they bring down God's judgments upon their
people: Achan's covetousness troubled whole Israel, Josh. vii. Especially if
high in place and honour; as when magistrates build their own houses upon
others' ruins, and purchase large revenues and estates with the public purse,
or detaining the hire of the poor. See Jer. xxii. 13. Well, then, no wonder
that covetous men meet with public hatred and detestation; they are not only
injurious to God, but human societies; they are a sort of men that are neither
moved with arguments of nature or grace. It is a character of a bad spirit,
Luke xviii. 2, that 'he neither feared God nor regarded man.' These two
restraints God hath laid upon us - his own fear to preserve religion, and the
shame of the world to preserve .human societies. Now some men are moved with
neither. It was a character of the Jews in their depravation, 1 Thes. ii. 15,
'They please not God, and are contrary to all men; 'they agree with none but
themselves. So elsewhere it is said, 2 Thee. iii. 2, 'Unreasonable men, that
have not faith;' neither grace, nor good nature, nor faith, nor reason. So
Lactantius saith of Lucian, Nec diis nec hominibus pepercit, he spared neither
God nor man. Covetousness maketh men of such a harsh and sour disposition.
Towards God it is idolatry; it robbeth him of one of the flowers of his crown,
the trust of the creature; and it is the bane of human societies. Why are men's
hearts besotted with that which is even the reproach and defamation of their
natures?
Obs. 4. That lust will put men not only upon dishonest
endeavours, but unlawful means, to accomplish their ends, killing, and warring,
and fighting, &c. Bad means will suit well enough with base ends; they
resolve to have it, rem, quocunque modo rem; any means will serve the turn, so
they may satisfy their thirst of gain: 1 Tim. vi. 9, 'They that will be rich
fall into temptations and a snare;' Prov. xxviii. 20, 'He that hasteth to be
rich shall not be innocent.' If God will not enrich them, Satan shall; and what
they cannot get by honest labour they make up by the deceitful bag. Learn,
then, what a tyrant lust is; if God doth not bless us, it maketh us go to the
devil. And again, know that that is rank lust which putteth you upon dishonest
means.
Obs. 5. From that ye lust, and have not; and again, ye kill and
emulate, and have not; and again, ye fight and war, and have not. - That do
wicked men what they can, when God setteth against them, their endeavours are
frustrate. Let them try all ways, yet still they are disappointed: Ps. xxxiii.
10, 'He maketh the devices of the wicked to be of none effect.' God will not
let his creatures to be too hard for him in all strifes; he will overcome, and
have the best of it, Rom. iii. 4. But when doth God set himself to frustrate
the endeavours of the creature? I answer - When the creature setteth itself to
frustrate his counsels and intents. That may be done several ways: - (1.) When
we will do things in despite of providence. They are disappointed once or twice
in an evil way, yet they will try again, as if they would have the mastery of
God; as the king of Israel would adventure the other fifty after two fifties
were destroyed, 2 Kings i.; Pharaoh would harden his heart after many plagues;
Balaam would smite his ass three times, Num. xxii. 25, and after that he would
build altar upon altar to curse Israel. (2.) When men seek by carnal policies
to make void God's promises or threatening". God had said, 'I will cut off
Ahab's posterity.' To avoid this he falleth a-begetting of children; he had
seventy children, that were all brought up in seventy strong cities, yet all
beheaded by Jehu. Herod, that he might make sure work of Christ, killed all the
children of Bethlehem, and some say his own son, nursed there; whereupon
Augustus said, Melius est Herodis porcus esse quam filius - it is better to be
Herod's swine than his son: and yet Christ was kept safe: Prov. xxi. 30, 'There
is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord.' He useth many
words to show that all the exquisiteness and choiceness of parts will not be
able to manage the contest against providence. (3.) When men crossed by
providence seek happiness elsewhere by unlawful acts and means, as violence,
cozenage, extortion, deceit, as if Satan could make them more prosperous than
God; see if these men do not go back in their estates; if their families, which
they seek to raise by such means, be not ruined. The old world would build a
tower, as if there were more security in a tower than a promise, Gen. xi. 4.
Many devices there are in man's heart to compass their ends, but they are all
blasted and marked with the curse of providence. (4.) When you say I will,
without God's leave: see Exod. xv. 9; James iv. 3. Such confident purposes and
presumptions as are not subjected to God's pleasure are seldom prosperous. (5.)
By reiterated endeavours against the church: see Isa. viii. 9,10. They are
still 'broken in pieces,' though they join force to policy, combine themselves
in leagues most holy, and renew their assaults with a united strength;
therefore the prophet repeateth it so often, 'Ye shall be broken in pieces, ye
shall,' &c.
Obs. 6. From that because ye ask not; that is, ask not
God's leave in humble and holy prayer. The note is, that it is not good to
engage in any undertaking without prayer. In prayer you ask God's leave, and
show your action is not a contest with him. The families that call not upon
God's name must needs be cursed: in their actions they do, as it were, say they
will be happy without God. We learn hence - (1.) That that argument against
prayer is vain: God knows our requests already; and God's decrees are
immutable, and cannot be altered by our prayers. So argued of old Maximus
Tyrius, a heathen philosopher, and so many Libertines in our days. I answer -
Prayer is not for God's information, but the creature's submission; we pray
that we may have his leave. And again, God's decrees do not exclude the duty of
creatures and the work of second causes: Ezek. xxxvi. 37, 'I will yet for this
be inquired after by the house of Israel;' so Jer. xxix. 11, 12, 'I know the
thoughts of peace that I have towards you, yet ye shall call upon me, and I
will hear you.' (2.) That no actions must be taken in hand but such as we can
commend to God in prayer; such recreations as we are ashamed to ask a blessing
upon must not be used; such enterprises we must not engage in as we dare not
communicate to God in our supplications: Isa. xxix. 15, 'Woe unto them that
seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord;' that is, design their
enterprises, and never inquire after the will of God, or communicate their
purpose to him in prayer.
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