And shall eat your flesh as it were fire. — Some interpret this of
406 AN EXPOSITION, WITH NOTES, [JaS. V- % 3.
those anxious and ' piercing cares,' 1 Tim. vi. 9, wlierevvith covetous men cumber their Hves, and eat out the vigour of their own spirits ; but with httle probability. They come much nearer to the scope of the apostle who interpret this ' eating as fire' of the means and cause of their ruin. It is usual in scripture to compare the wrath of God to fire, whether expressed by temporal judgments or eternal torments. See Ps. xxi. 9 ; Isa. xxx. 27. and xxxiii. 11. ' Your breath as fire shall devour you ; ' so Mark ix. 44, ' Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched.' Now the efi^ects of wrath are also ascribed to the meri- torious cause of it ; for what wrath is said to do, that sin is said to do ; as in the places cited, and here, the rust shall eat as fire ; that is, shall hasten the wrath of God, which shall burn as fire, either in your temporal or eternal ruin. Possibly here may be some latent allu- sion to the manner of Jerusalem's ruin, in which many thousands perished by fire, which was a pledge of the general judgment. Observe hence : —
Obs. 1. That the matter of our sin shall in hell become the matter of our punishment. The rust of hoarded treasures is not only witness, but executioner. As it hath eaten out the silver, so it shall eat your flesh, and gnaw upon your consciences. When you are burning in hell flames, reflections upon the rust will be sad and horrible. The vexation and anger at your past folly will heighten your present sufter- ings. Conscience and a sense of the wrath of God are a great part of that fire which burneth souls ; ^ and the outward pains are much in- creased by remembering the past circumstances of sin ; the revenging image and representation of them always runneth in the thoughts, and their flesh is eaten, but not consumed.2 Oh ! consider of it ; the rust that eateth out the money is but a pledge of those devouring torments. It will be sad to think hereafter that so much money as you hoarded up, so much fire you kept in your chests to your own eternal ruin. It is a part of heaven's happiness to ' know as we are known ; ' that is, to look back upon the circumstances of our past lives, and to see what we were enabled to do by the care and help of grace. And so it is a part of hell's torment to review the passages of a sinful life, and with horror and a desjiairing remorse to look back upon the known evi- dences and circumstances of their own guilt. Their present delights prove their future torments.
066'. 2. Observe, again, the misery of covetousness here and here- after. Now it burneth the soul with desires and cares, and hereafter with despair and remorse of con.science. Here pierced with thorns, and there scorched witli fires. Oh ! what a hard service have these drudges of Satan ! Care for the present, and horror hereaiter ! They labour and toil, and all that they may go to hell with just nothing. What do you gain by Satan ? Every sinner is first taken in his snares, and then bound in ciiains of darkness ; but you, above all others, be- gin your hell by eating out all your quiet with carking care, that you may eternally undo your souls with the more pains.
Ye leave heaped treasure for the last days. — This clause hath under- gone several constructions. Some by ' the last days' understand the
* About hell fire see Ati/j. de CivHatc Dei, lib. .\xi. cap. 4.
- 'Effunditur nobis ultrix imago peccati, nee quictum ix-um esse peruiitit.'
JaS. V. 2, 3.] UPON THE EPISTLE OF JAMES. 407
latter part of their lives, as if the apostle in this expression did tax that carnal distrust whereby covetous men think they shall never have enough to suffice their needy old age. Such kind of men are always distrustful of future events, and carking for the morrow : what shall become of them and their children, and how they shall live when they are old — a sinful anxiety, however veiled under the appearance of necessity. God gave the Israelites manna but for one day, and our Lord taught us to pray for ' daily bread.' Every day's trouble is ordained by God for our exercise, and is enough to take up our thoughts. We do but anticipate our cares, and create a needless dis- traction to ourselves, by carking for the last days ; and yet usually this disposition increaseth with age, and the older men grow, the more solicitous about worldly provisions.^ Thus some explain the apostle, but with little reason ; for it is not a description, but a threatening ; and the apostle is not now intimating their disposition, but their judg- ment and ruin. Others expound the clause of treasuring and storing up wrath against the day of judgment, as the apostle Paul useth such another phrase, Kom. ii. 5. Calvin inclineth to this sense, because of the former expression, ' shall eat your flesh as fire.' And, indeed, some translations (as the Syriac and Arabic) read that clause ' as fire ' with this last sentence, ' You have treasured up riches as it were fire for the last days;' that is, as Diodati expoundeth it, whereas you thought to lay up treasures for time to come, you shall in effect find that you have laid up God's wrath. I confess tliis is probable, because of the particular allusion to their hoarding, and because of the known resemblance between wrath and a treasure. It is long a-gathering, but every day the sum increaseth ; and the longer it is ere it be opened, the greater the heap. As Jehoiada's chest, which was not to be opened till the sum was considerable, so it is here. God's wrath increaseth by degrees, the slower always the more sharp in the issue, so that it is some kind of mercy to meet with a sudden punishment,"^ and to have our worldly practices checked with an early disappoint- ment, lest wrath grow with our estates, and we do not treasure up money so much as judgments, which will be a sad gain when the chest of God's patience is broken open. See Job xxvii. 8, and Prov. xi. 4. It were far better to scatter than to increase such a heap, as those that fly in battle scatter their wealth that they may not be pursued. God gave us riches as a means to escape wrath, by a liberal and charitable distribution of them to his own glory. Certainly we should not use them as a means to treasure up wrath. Thus you see the words may be fitly accommodated with this sense. But I rather prefer a third, because there is no cogent reason why we should take this edrja-avpi- aare, ' ye have heaped treasures,' in a metaphorical sense, especially since, with good leave from the context, scope of the apostle, and the state of those times, the literal may be retained. I should therefore simply understand the words as an intimation of their approaching judgments ; and so the apostle seemeth to me to tax their vanity in hoarding and heaping up wealth, when those scattering and fatal