But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.
Ver. 6. Is dead while she liveth] Cum careat pura mente, cadaver agit. Pamphilius in Terence saith the like of a light housewife. Sane hercle homo voluptati obsequens fuit dum vixit. St Paul's Greek cannot well be rendered but by Terence's Latin, and Terence's Latin cannot well be put into other Greek.
But she that liveth in pleasure] Gr. σπαταλωσα. The delicate dame, such as were those wanton daughters of Sion, those mincing minions mentioned Isaiah 3:16,26, as also those of Tyre and Sidon, those of Phoenicia, so called from the Syriac phinneck, delicate: the Greeks call them τρυφεροι, such as lie melting in sensual delights and sinful pleasures, in the froth whereof groweth that worm that never dieth, James 5:5. I have read of a gallant addicted to uncleanness, who at last meeting with a beautiful dame, and having enjoyed his fleshly desires of her, found her in the morning to be the dead body of one that he had formerly sinned with, which had been acted by the devil all night, and left dead again in the morning. Sure he had but ψυχρον παραγκαλισμα, a cold armful of her at length (as Lycophron saith of an evil wife), and if God had given grace, it might have brought him to better courses; but where that is wanting, no warning will serve turn. Jeroboam had as great a miracle wrought before him in the drying up of his hand, as St Paul at his conversion, yet was he not wrought upon, because the Spirit did not set it on. Besides, grace is seated in the powers of nature. Now carnal sins disable nature, and so set men in a greater distance from grace, as taking away the heart,Hosea 4:11 .