Because they were so overcome with worldly lusts that their
very prayers and devotionary acts looked that way, he cometh to show the danger
and heinousness of these lusts. The arguments of this verse are two - (1.) They
will make you commit adultery; (2.) They will make you enemies to God.
Ye
adulterers and adulteresses. - This must be understood spiritually, as
appeareth by the following words and the drift of the context, which is to
inveigh against those lusts and pleasures which inveigle the soul and withdraw
it from God. Now these are spiritual adulterers whom the love of the world
alienateth and estrangeth from the Lord. The metaphor is elsewhere used, Mat
xii. 39, and xvi. 4, 'This evil and adulterous generation.'
Know ye not. -
He appealeth to their consciences; it is a rousing question. Worldly men do not
sin out of ignorance so much as incogitancy; they do not consider.
That the
friendship of the world. - By hè filia tou kosmou he understandeth an
emancipation of our affections to the pleasures, profits, and lusts of the
world. Men study to please their friends, and they are friends of the world
therefore that seek to gratify worldly men or worldly lusts, and court outward
vanities rather than renounce them; a practice unsuitable to religion. You may
use the world, but not seek the friendship of it. Those that would be dandled
upon the world's knees, lose a friend of Christ. As to instance, in pleasing
the men of the world, Gal. i. 10, 'If I yet please men, I were not the servant
of Christ.' So for gratifying of worldly lusts; we may use the comforts of the
world, but may not serve the lusts and pleasures of it: that is a description
of the carnal state, Titus iii. 3.
Is enmity with God. - When you begin to
please the world you wage war against heaven, and bid open defiance to the Lord
of hosts; the love of God and care of obedience is abated just so much as the
world prevaileth in you. There is a like expression Rom. viii. 7, 'The carnal
mind is enmity against God;' averse and adverse. So doth the world not only
withdraw the heart from God, but oppose him. A man can hardly serve two
masters, though of the same judgment; but God and the world are opposite
masters, they command contrary things: 1 John ii. 15, 'If any man love the
world, the love of the Father is not in him;' Mat. vi. 24, 'Ye cannot serve God
and mammon.' They that match covetousness with profession seek to reconcile two
of the most unsuitable things in the world.
Whosoever therefore. - General
truths must be enforced by applicative inferences, and so they fall directly
upon the soul: Job v. 27, 'So it is, hear it, and know it for thy good.'
Will be the friend of the world. - Boulèthè noteth the aim and
serious purpose. All do not find the world to favour them; do what they can,
'the world is crucified to them;' but they are not as Paul was, 'crucified to
the world,' Gal. vi. 14. Therefore the scripture taketh notice not of what is
in the event, but the aim. Besides, the serious purpose and choice discovereth
the state of the soul; he is also absolutely a worldly man that will be a
friend of the world. So 1 Tim. vi. 9, hoi boulomenoi ploutein, 'they that will
be rich.' In heavenly matters the deliberate choice and full purpose
discovereth grace: Acts xi. 23, 'That with purpose of heart they would cleave
to the Lord.' Therefore Christians should look to their purpose and aim. What
is it? What do you give your minds to? When a man setteth himself to grow rich,
to lay up treasures upon earth, he is a worldly man; as when he giveth his
heart and mind and whole man to do what God requireth, whatever cometh of it,
he is a true servant of the Lord. To this purpose are those speeches of
Solomon: Prov. xxiii. 4, 'Labour not to be rich;' that is, do not give up thy
heart and endeavours to find out and follow all ways to increase thy wealth and
estate: so Prov. xxviii. 20, 'He that maketh haste to be rich,' &c., hath
set up that for his purpose. Now this purpose of the soul may be known, partly
by a resolute carrying on the end without weighing the means and consequences;
partly by the diligence and earnestness of the spirit. When the end is fixed,
we are patient of all labour, but impatient of check and disappointment.
Is
the enemy of God. - Actively and passivelv; it maketh a man hate God, and to be
hated by God. Duty will either make us weary of the world, or the world will
make us weary of duty. The children of God have experience of the one, and
hypocrites of the other
The points, besides those observed in the
exposition, are these: -
Obs. 1. That worldliness in Christians is
spiritual adultery. It dissolveth the spiritual marriage between God and the
soul; of all sins it is most unsuitable to the marriage-covenant, the covenant
of grace, wherein God propoundeth himself to be 'all-sufficient.' Gen. xvii. 1.
We have enough in God, but we desire to make up our happiness in the creatures;
this is plain whoring: Ps. lxxiii. 27, 'Thou hast destroyed all them that go a
whoring from thee;' that is, those which sought that in the world which is only
to be found in God. There are degrees in this whoredom. You know there may be
adultery in affection when the body is not defiled; unclean glances are a
degree of lust. The children of God may have some outrunning and straggling
thoughts: when the devil is at their elbows, the world may be greatened in
their esteem and imagination: 'Happy is the people that is in such a case,' Ps.
cxliv. 15; but they presently correct themselves, and return to the bosom of
God; yea, rather, 'happy is the people whose God is the Lord.' In others there
is a higher degree; they settle those affections upon the world which are only
due and proper to God, as their care, delight, desire, fear, hope, which should
be kept chaste and loyal to Jesus Christ; yet there is still some profession.
As a woman that is not contented with one husband, and yet still retaineth the
colour and pretence of the first marriage: this is in hypocrites, who divide
their hearts between God and the world. There are others who plainly leave the
Creator for the creature, and prefer the world before God, the profits and
pleasures of it before communion with him in holy duties. To let the world
share with God is an evil, but to prefer the world before God is an impiety. As
a whorish wife preferreth every one before her own husband, so do the profane,
who live as professed prostitutes: their love is wholly withdrawn from God as a
husband, and their obedience from him as a lord: they 'love pleasures more than
God,' 2 Tim. iii. 4. Well, then, check worldly inclinations; when your hearts
are too passionately drawn forth to present comforts and contentments, or when
your thoughts are raised into too great admiration of them, or when worldly
ease and pleasure hindereth and withdraweth you from duty, or are apt to prefer
carnal satisfaction before communion with God, remember at such time this is
adultery. You are not your own, but given up to God: 1 Cor. vi. 15, 'Know ye
not that your bodies are members of Christ? And shall I take the members of
Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.' This love is
Christ's; these admiring thoughts, these pains, time, care, earnestness, they
are all Christ's; and shall I give that which is Christ's to the world? God
hath fenced us against outward adultery by fear and shame: some countries
punish it with whipping, others with death. There is baseness and danger also
in spiritual adultery. There is baseness; affections are impure, so far as they
are let out upon other things rather than God: shall I be an adulterer or an
adulteress to God? How will this expose me to the scorn of men and angels? At
the last day they will come pointing, as in Ps. lii. 7, 'This is the man that
made not God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches!' This is
a Gadarene, that loved his swine more than Christ, that preferred a game at
cards before communion with God, a cup, a drunken meeting, before the house of
God, &c. Spiritual harlots will not be able to look good men and angels in
the face. There is danger in it too; God is a jealous God. Whoring under the
law was punished with death: 'Every one that goeth a-whoring from thee wilt
thou destroy.' There is nothing provoketh the Lord so much as this, that base
things should be preferred before him.
Obs. 2. From that and adulteresses
The Syriac translation hath not this word; the vulgar hath only adulteri, yet
the Greek copies have it. It is not usual in scriptures to speak to women; the
speeches of the apostles in their epistles are usually directed to men,
therefore it is the more notable. The note is, that women have special need to
take heed of worldly pleasures and lusts: 'You adulterers and adulteresses.'
Whore is a name of reproach; you cannot endure it. Ah! be not whores
spiritually, doting too much upon outward pleasure and pomp. You are loyal to
your earthly husbands; Ah! be so to Jesus Christ. Men's hearts are more usually
distracted with worldly cares, but yours are apt to be besotted with worldly
pleasures; we usually call it softness and effeminacy. The apostle speaks of
some women that 'wax wanton against Christ,' 1 Tim. v. 11; that is, when they
begin to renounce the inward mortification of fleshly lusts. Remember you have
a heavenly husband; let not soft delicacy so corrupt your minds as to make you
forget your duty to him: you have a great many snares - your tenderness,
others' examples, &c.;
Obs. 3. That to seek the friendship of the world
is the ready way to be God's enemy. God and the world are contrary; he is all
good, and the world lieth in wickedness; and they command contrary things. The
world saith, Slack no opportunity of gain and pleasure; if you will be so
peevish as to stand nicely upon conscience, you will do nothing but draw
trouble upon yourselves. Now, God saith, Deny yourselves, take up your cross,
renounce the world, &c. The world saith, 'Wilt thou take thy bread, and thy
water, and thy flesh, and give it unto men whom thou knowest not whence they
be?' 1 Sam. xxv. 11. But God saith, 'Sell that ye have, and give alms, provide
bags that waste not,' &c. It were easy to instance in several such
contrarieties. We find by experience that so far as we mingle with the world,
so far are our hearts deadened and estranged from God; and by the encroachment
of worldly delights and vanities upon the spirit, the love of God decayeth. It
is a vain conceit to think we can serve God and our lusts too. The world and
grace are incompatible; they may be together sometimes, as a rusty dial may be
right by chance. But you will be put to trial; and when God and the world come
in competition, you may see whose friendship you do desire. When a worldly man
must do the one or the other, you shall see where his heart is; he will rather
offend God than lose riches, pleasures, or preferment: he is loath to be bound
up by the curt allowance of conscience and religion; and though he would gild
all with a pretence of respect to God, yet carnal reasons oversway, and he
taketh the world's part against God. Well, now, you see the enmity between God
and the world.
(1.) Think of it seriously, when you are about to mingle
with earthly comforts and delights, and can neglect God for a little carnal
conveniency and satisfaction; this is to be an enemy to God; and can I make
good my part against him? He is almighty, and can crush you. What are our
feeble hands to the grasp of omnipotency? See Ezek. xxii. 14. And he is a
terrible enemy 'when he whetteth his glittering sword,' Deut. xxxii. 41. Nay,
if none of all this were to be feared, the very estrangement from God is
punishment enough to itself! Shall I renounce the love and favour of God, and
all commerce and communion between him and me, for a little temporal delight
and pleasure? God forbid.
(2.) Learn how odious worldliness is; it is
direct enmity to God, because it is carried on under sly pretences; of all sins
this seemeth most plausible. Usually we stroke it with a gentle censure, and
say, He is a good man, but a little covetous and worldly, &c. That is
enough to entitle him God's enemy. The world reckoneth sins, not by the inward
contrariety to God, but by the outward excesses and acts of filthiness; and
therefore, because covetous persons do not break out into acts foul and
shameful, they have much of the honour and respect of the world: Ps. xlix. 13,
'Their way is folly, yet their posterity approve their sayings;' that is,
praise and esteem such a kind of life. Sensual persons are like beasts, and
therefore the object of common scorn; but worldliness suiteth more with carnal
reason, and is a sin more human and rational: Ps. x. 3, 'They bless the
covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth.' The Lord abhorreth them, but men bless
them; for they do not measure sins so much by the inward enmity, as by the
outward excess. God's hatred ariseth from his own purity, but man's from the
external inconveniences of disgrace and loss.
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