Ver. 14. But every man is tempted token he is drawn aiuay of his oivn Just, and enticed.
Here he cometh to show the true and proper cause of sin. having removed the false pretended cause, namely, God's providence and de- cree. The true procreating cause of sin is in every man's soul ; it is his lust ; he carrieth that which is /o7is et fomcs, the food and fuel of it in his own bosom. Now this lust worketh two ways, by force and fraud, drawing away and enticing, as in the exj)lication will more fully appear.
Bid every rnan is tempted. — He speaketh. so universally, because none is free but Christ,
When by his oiun lust. — He saith his own, because though we have alia corrupt nature in common, yet every one hath a particular several inclination to this or that sin rooted in his nature. Or rather oivn, to exclude foreign force, and all violence from without : there is not a greater enemy than our own nature.
His oion lust. — That I may show you what is meant by lust, I must premise something : — (1.) The soul of man is chiefly and mainly made up of desires ; like a sponge, it is always thirsting, and sucking of something to fill itself. All its actings, even the first actings of the understanding, come out of some will and some desire ; as the apostle speaketh of ' the wills of the mind,' Eph. ii. 3, a place I shall touch upon again by and by. (2.) At least this will be granted, that the bent of the soul, the most vigorous, commanding, swaying faculty of the soul, is desire ; that hvvaiJbi<; iiridvixrjrLKi] is, I say, the most vigorous bent of the soul. (3.) Since the fall, man rather consulteth Avith his desires than with anything else, and there all action and pursuit beginneth. So that this faculty is eminently corrupted, and corrupteth and swayethall the rest; and therefore gross lusts, the lower and baser desires, are called, ' the law of the members,' Eom. vii. 2.3 ; desires or lusts giving law to the wliole soul. Upon these reasons I suppose it is that all sin is expressed by lust, which, if taken in a proper and restrained sense, would not reach the obliquities of the whole nature of man, but only of one faculty ; but because there seemeth to be in the creature a secret will and desire, by which every act is drawn out, and desire is the most vigorous faculty, bending and engaging the soul to action,
04 AN EXPOSITION, WITH NOTES, [JaS. I. 14.
the Spirit of God cliooscth to express sin by last, and such words as arc most jiroper to the desires of the creatures. It is true, that in the Old Testament I find it expressed by a word proper to the under- standing, by ' inventions,' or ' imaginations,' or ' counsels,' whence those phrases, ' walking according to their own imaginations,' and ' walking in their own counsels.' But the New Testament delighteth rather in the other expressions of ' concupiscence ' and ' lust,' words proper to the desires ; the reason of which difference I conceive to be, partly the manner of the Hebrews, who frequently use words of the understanding to note suitable affections ; partly the state of the world, who at first were brutish in their conceits, and prone to idols, and therefore the Old Testament runneth in that strain, ' imaginations,' ' counsels,' &c. ; and at length were brutish in their desires, and more prone to gross sins ; and therefore in the New, it is ' lusts,' ' concupis- cence,' &c. However, this I observe, that in the Old Testament there is some word belonging to the will and desires adjoined to those words of the understanding, as the ' imaginations of their own hearts,' ' the counsels of their own hearts ;' that is, such imaginations as were stirred up and provoked by their own hearts and desires. All this is premised to show you why the scripture chooseth to express sin by lust and concupiscence.
Now, lust may be considered two ways : — (1.) As a power ; (2.) As an act.
1; As a power, and so it noteth that habitual, primitive, and radical indisposition to good, and a disposition to evil, that is in all the facul- ties— tlie whole dunghill of corruption, which reeketh sometimes in the understanding by evil thoughts, sometimes in the will by lusts and corrupt desires, and is the mother out of whose womb all sin cometh ; and as it is called lust or concupiscence, so it is called flesh, the oppo- site contrary principle to spirit: Gal. v. 17, ' The flesh lusteth against the spirit :' there it is called /es/i, and its radical act Justing.
2. Look upon it as an act, and actual lust oi- concupiscence, and it is nothing else but the risings and first motions of this fleshly nature that is in us. These lustings are of two sorts — those of the lower and those of the upper soul. The apostle calleth them, Eph. ii. 3, ' the wills of the flesh, and of the mind.'
[1.] The wills of the flesh are those lower and more brutish appe- tites which are the rise of lust, wantonness, drunkenness, gluttony, called by way of emphasis, ' the lusts of the flesh:' 1 John ii. 16, * Whatever is in the world is the lusts of the tiesli, the lusts of the e3'es, and the pride of life.' By the lusts of the flesh are meant the neigh- ingsof the soul after outward pleasures, and all manner of sensual and carnal delights. Now these, when they are improved into gross and irregular actions, stink in the nostrils of nature. In Aristotle^ they are called iTrLdv/xlaL 6ripLU)oet<;, brutish and belluine, not only because we have them in connnun with the beasts, but because they degenerate into a brutish excess. Thus you see what lusts of the flesh are. I confess they are sometimes taken more largely for any risings of corrupt nature, it being most natural to us to be enslaved by sensual and fleshly objects ; the part is put for the whole.