The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
Ver. 22. The light of the body is the eye, &c.] Here our blessed Saviour illustrateth what he had said before, of laying up, not on earth, but in heaven, by a fit similitude. Like as the eye is the light of the whole body, so is the mind of the whole man. "If therefore thine eye be single," that is, if thy mind be sincere, if thou have that one eye of the spouse in the Canticles, Song of Solomon 4:9, that one heart promised in the new covenant, Ezekiel 11:19, set upon God alone, and not divided, and, as it were, cloven asunder (which is to have a heart and a heart), but minding the one thing necessary, as the main, and be not double-minded, or corrupted from the simplicity of Christ, 2 Corinthians 11:3, -then shall thy whole body, that is, thy whole both constitution and conversation, be lightsome, diaphanous, transparent, as a lantern that hath a candle in it, or as a crystal glass with a light in the midst, which appeareth through every part thereof. There will be a uniformity, equability, ubiquity, and constancy of holiness running through thy whole course, as the warp doth through the woof; when a double-minded man (that hath not cleansed his heart, nor washed his hands of worldly lusts) is unstable and uneven in all his ways (διφυχος), James 4:8; James 1:8; "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind," Luke 10:27; "And with my mind I serve the law of God," saith Paul, which he acknowledged to be spiritual, though he were carnal in part, sold under sin. The old man is still corrupt according to the deceitful lusts (which sometimes so bemist and beguile the judgment, that a man shall think there is some sense in sinning, and that he hath reason to be mad), but be ye renewed in the spirit of your minds, in the bosom and bottom of the soul, in the most inward and subtile parts of the soul, and, as it were, the quintessence of it, Ephesians 4:22,23. Reserve these upper rooms for Christ, and be not ye conformed to the world (who mind earthly things, and have damnation for their end, Php 3:19), but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds, Romans 12:2, that ye may see and prove by good experience (not by a notional knowledge only) what that good, and holy, and acceptable will of God is. Concerning the east gate of that temple in Ezekiel, thus saith the Lord, "This gate shall be shut, and shall not be opened, and no man shall enter by it, because the Lord God of Israel hath entered by it," Ezekiel 44:2; there by signifying, saith a divine, that although the heart, of a Christian, which is the temple of the Holy Ghost, may let many things enter into it at other gates, yet must it keep the east gate, the most illuminate and highest power and part of it, continually shut against all men; yea, against all the world; and opened only to one thing, I mean to God, who hath already entered into it, and enlightened it with his Spirit. That as at the windows of Noah's ark there entered in no mist nor water, nothing else but one thing only, which is light; so at the east gate, no mist of human errors, no water of worldly cares, may enter in, but only the light of heaven, and a sanctified desire to be fast knit and perfectly united by faith and love to God.