Treasures of wickedness profit nothing: but righteousness delivereth from death.
Ver. 2. Treasures of wickedness.] Our Saviour calls it "Mammon of iniquity," Luk 16:9 that next odious name to the devil. Most men's care is how to grasp and get wealth for their children - rem rem, quocunque modo rem. Virtus post nummos, &c. But what saith a grave author? a "Better leave thy child a wallet to beg from door to door, than a cursed hoard of evil gotten goods." There is for the most part lucrura in arca, damnum in conscientia, b - gain in the purse, but loss in the conscience.
But righteousness delivereth from death.] Piety, though poor, delivereth from the second death, and from the first too, as to the evil of it. For as Christ took away the guilt of sin, not sin itself, so he hath taken away, not death, but the sting of death from all believers, making it to such of a curse a blessing; of a punishment, a benefit; of a trap door to hell, a portal to heaven; a postern to let out temporal life, but a street door to let in eternal life.
a Mr Bolton.
b Augustine.