For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
Ver. 16. The lust of the flesh, the lust of, &c.] That is, pleasure, profit, preferment; the worldling's trinity, as one saith. Compare herewith Christ's threefold temptation, Luke 4:3,9, and St James's character of worldly wisdom, James 3:15. See Trapp on " Jam 3:15 " It is his pleasure, his profit, and his honour (saith a divine) that is the natural man's trinity, and his carnal self that is these in unity. And to the same purpose the Christian poet,
" Ambitiosus honos, et opes, et foeda voluptas,
Haec tria pro trino numine mundus habet. "
But is of the world] Base and bootless. Nec verum, nec vestrum. To know the vanity of the world (as of a mist) you must go a little from it.