But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
Ver. 23. But if thine eye be evil, &c. If the light that is in thee be darkness, &c.] An evil eye is here opposed to a single eye, that looks on God singly abstracted from all other things, and affects the heart with pure love to him for himself, more than for his love tokens. These we may lawfully have, but they may not have us. "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," 1 John 2:16, that is, pleasure, profit, and preferment, -these three, like those three troops of the Chaldeans, Job 1:17, fall upon the faculties of the soul, and carry them away from God the right owner. The mind is filled with greater darkness than can be expressed. How great is that darkness! "The prince that lacketh understanding is a great oppressor: but he that hateth covetousness," that hath not his eyes bleared and blinded with the dust of earthly mindedness,"shall prolong his days," Proverbs 28:16; "His watchmen are blind:" and why? "they are greedy dogs, which can never have enough, and they are shepherds which cannot understand; they all look to their own way, every one for his gain from his quarter," Isaiah 56:10,11. a Of this sort were those covetous Pharisees, that devoured widows' houses; therefore blind, because covetous, Luke 16:14; Luke 20:47, the property of which sin is to besot and infatuate, as it did Judas, who, though he wanted for nothing in our Saviour's retinue, but was sufficiently provided for, yet for filthy lucre basely sold his Master, and that for thirty silverlings (the known and pitched price of the vilest slave), and had the face, after all, to ask, "Master, is it I?" when he knew Christ to be the true God, and to know all things. Blazing comets (though but comets) as long as they keep aloft, shine bright, but when they decline from their pitch, they fall to the earth. So, when men forsake the Lord and mind earthly things, they lose that light they had, and are dissipated, destroyed, and come to nothing. Good, therefore, is the counsel of Solomon, "Labour not to be rich: wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?" Or as Mercerus otherwise reads that text, "Wilt thou darken thine eyes upon them?" b As those that walk long in the snow, or that sit in a smoky corner, can see little at length. "Whoredom and wine take away the heart," saith Hosea, Hos 4:11 as they did Solomen's; they drew out his spirits, and dissolved his reason; so doth covetousness. It makes a man that he cannot see the net that is spread before him, which every bird can do, Proverbs 1:17 : c but while he coveteth the bait, loseth his life, as Shimei did by looking for his servants; as Lot, who had like to have run the same hazard, by choosing the plain of Jordan; as Jonas, that suffered himself to be cast into the sea, that the ship with her lading might come safe to shore. How many carnal minds, like Noah's raven, fly out of the ark of God's Church, and embrace this present world: and like the mariners, when they found out Jonas, yet fain they would have saved him. So many will rather venture their own casting away, than cast their worldly lusts overboard. How much better Joseph, who let go his garment to save himself, as Elijah did his mantle to go to heaven, and Bartimeus his cloak to come to Christ! How much better Moses, who by faith seeing him that is invisible, and having an eye to the reward, when he was come to years, as the text noteth, and therefore well knew what he did, for he was no baby, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter and the world's darling; and choosing rather the afflictions of God's poor people than the pleasures of sin for a season, he esteemed the reproach of Christ (the worst part of him) greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. And why all this? "for he had respect to the recompence of reward," Hebrews 11:24,26. He set his foot, as it were, upon the battlements of heaven, and there hence looked upon these earthly happinesses as base and abject, slight and slender, waterish and worthless. The great cities of Campania seem but small cottages to them that stand on the top of the Alps: d the moon covereth herself with a pale veil and shines not at all in the presence of the sun: no more doth the beauty and bravery of the world (wherewith carnal minds are so bedazzled and bewitched) to a man that hath been in Paradise with Paul, that hath already laid hold on eternal life. The moles of the earth, that are blind and cannot see far off, that have animam triticiam, a wheaten soul, with that fool in the Gospel, and know no other happiness than to have and to hold; these have their eyes blinded by the god of this world, as Isaac had his wells stopped up with earth by the Philistines. And as a small dish being held near the eyes hideth from our sight a great mountain; and a little hill or cloud, the great body of the sun, though it be far bigger than the whole earth; so these earthly trifles being placed near men's sight, do so shadow and cloud out those great and glorious excellencies that are above, that they can neither truly behold them, nor rightly judge of them. e When men travel so far into the south that the sight of the north pole is at length intercepted by the earth, it is a sign they are far from it: so is it, that men are far from heaven when the love of the earth comes in between their souls and the sight thereof. Earth damps quench the spirit's lamp. Much water of affliction cannot quench that love, that yet a little earth may soon do.
a Avidus a non videndo dicitur; et Midas secundum Etymologiam Graecam caecus est.
b Proverbs 23:4,5. Num facies obtenebrescere oculos tuos in eas? Job 11:17; Amos 4:13 .
c Aves quae vident rete suspensum non capiuntur, sed videntes periculum cavent. Bayn.
d Postquam in montium verticem ascenderimus parva nobis et urbes et moenia etiam videntur: sit parva videbuntur otium gloria divitiae cum coelum respicias.
e 2 Peter 1:9, μυωπαζοντες. Muris oculos habentes, subterranei scilicet muris, hoc est, talpae. Genesis 26:15. The poets feigned Plutus, the god of riches, to be blind. Divites facultatibus suis alligati magis aurum suspiciunt, quam coelum. Minut. Octan.