Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 5.djvu/77

Rh treasure must be laid up with him, and then our souls will be lifted up to him.

This direction about laying up our treasure, may very fitly be applied to the foregoing caution, of not doing what we do in religion to be seen of men. Our treasure is our alms, prayers, and fastings, and the reward of them; if we have done these only to gain the applause of men, we have laid up this treasure on earth, have lodged it in the hands of men, and must never expect to hear any further of it. Now it is folly to do this, for the praise of men we covet so much, is liable to corruption; it will soon be rusted, and moth-eaten, and tarnished; a little folly, like a dead fly, will spoil it all, Eccl. 10. 1. Slander and calumny are thieves that break through and steal it away, and so we lose all the treasure of our performances; we have run in vain and laboured in vain, because we misplaced our intentions in doing of them. Hypocritical services lay up nothing in heaven; (Isa. 58. 3.) the gain of them is gone, when the soul is called for, Job 27. 8. But if we have prayed and fasted and given alms, in truth and uprightness, with an eye to God and to his acceptance, and have approved ourselves to him therein, we have laid up that treasure in heaven; a book of remembrance is written there, (Mal. 3. 16. ) and being there recorded, they shall be there rewarded, and we shall meet them again with comfort on the other side death and the grave. Hypocrites are written in the earth, (Jer. 17. 13.) but God's faithful ones have their names written in heaven, Luke 10. 20. Acceptance with God is treasure in heaven, which can neither be corrupted nor stolen. His well done shall stand for ever; and if we have thus laid up our treasure with him, with him our hearts will be; and where can they be better?

II. We must take heed of hypocrisy and worldly-mindedness in choosing the end we look at. Our concern as to this is represented by two sorts of eyes which men have, a single eye and an evil eye, v. 22, 23. The expressions here are somewhat dark because concise; we shall therefore take them in some variety of interpretation. The light of the body is the eye, that is plain; the eye is discovering and directing; the light of the world would avail us little without this light of the body; it is the light of the eye that rejoiceth the heart, (Prov. 15. 30.) but what is that which is here compared to the eye in the body?

1. The eye, that is, the heart; (so some) if that be single—ἁπλοῦς—free and bountiful, (so the word is frequently rendered, as Rom. 12. 8. 2 Cor. 8. 2.—9. 11,13. Jam. 1. 5. and we read of a bountiful eye, Prov. 22. 9.) If the heart be liberally affected and stand inclined to goodness and charity, it will direct the man to christian actions, the whole conversation will be full of light, full of the evidences and instances of true christianity, that pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father; (Jam. 1. 27.) full of light, of good works, which are our light shining before men; but if the heart be evil, covetous, and hard, and envious, grinding, and grudging, (such a temper of mind is often expressed by an evil eye, ch. 20. 15. Mark 7. 22. Prov. 23. 6, 7.) the body will be full of darkness, the whole conversation will be heathenish and unchristian. The instruments of the churl are and always will be evil, but the liberal deviseth liberal things, Isa. 32. 5—8. If the light that is in us, those affections which should guide us to that which is good, be darkness, if these be corrupt and worldly, if there be not so much as good nature in a man, not so much as a kind disposition, how great is the corruption of the man, and the darkness in which he sits! This sense seems to agree with the context: we must lay up treasure in heaven by liberality in giving alms, and that not grudgingly but with cheerfulness, Luke 12. 33. 2 Cor. 9. 7. But these words in the parallel place do not come in upon any such occasion, Luke 11. 34. and therefore the coherence here does not determine that to be the sense of them.

3. The eye, that is, the understanding; (so some;) the practical judgment, the conscience, which is to the other faculties of the soul, as the eye is to the body, to guide and direct their motions; now if the eye be single, if it make a true and right judgment, and discern things that differ, especially in the great concern of laying up the treasure so as to choose aright in that, it will rightly guide the affections and actions, which will all be full of the light of grace and comfort; but if this be evil and corrupt, and instead of leading the inferior powers, is led, and bribed, and biassed by them, if this be erroneous and misinformed, the heart and life must needs be full of darkness, and the whole conversation corrupt. They that will not understand, are said to walk on in darkness, Ps. 82. 5. It is sad when the spirit of a man, that should be the candle of the Lord, is an ignis fatuus; when the leaders of the people, the leaders of the faculties, cause them to err, for then they that are led of them are destroyed, Isa. 9. 16. An error in the practical judgment is fatal, it is that which calls evil good and good evil; (Isa. 5. 20.) therefore it concerns us to understand things aright, to get our eyes anointed with eye-salve.

3. The eye, that is, the aims and intentions; by the eye we set our end before us, the mark we shoot at, the place we go to, we keep that in view, and direct our motion accordingly; in every thing we do in religion, there is something or other that we have in our eye; now if our eye be single, if we aim honestly, fix right ends, and move rightly towards them, if we aim purely and only at the glory of God, seek his honour and favour, and direct all entirely to him, then the eye is single: Paul's was so when he said, To me to live is Christ; and if we be right here, the whole body will be full of light, all the actions will be regular and gracious, pleasing to God and comfortable to ourselves: but if this eye be evil, if, instead of aiming only at the glory of God, and our acceptance with him, we look aside at the applause of men, and while we profess to honour God, contrive to honour ourselves, and seek our own things under colour of seeking the things of Christ, this spoils all, the whole conversation will be perverse and unsteady, and the foundations being thus out of course, there can be nothing but confusion and every evil work in the superstructure. Draw the lines from the circumference to any other point but the centre, and they will cross. If the light that is in thee be not only dim, but darkness itself, it is a fundamental error, and destructive to all that follows. The end specifies the action. It is of the last importance in religion, that we be right in our aims, and make eternal things, not temporal, our scope, 2 Cor. 4. 18. The hypocrite is like the waterman, that looks one way and rows another; the true christian like the traveller, that has his journey's end in his eye. The hypocrite soars like the kite, with his eye upon the prey below, which he is ready to come down to when he has a fair opportunity; the true christian soars like the lark, higher and higher, forgetting the things that are beneath.

III. We must take heed of hypocrisy and worldly-mindedness in choosing the master we serve, v. 24. No man can serve two masters. Serving two masters is contrary to the single eye; for the eye will be to the master's hand, Ps. 123. 1, 2. Our Lord Jesus here exposes the cheat which those put upon their own souls, who think to divide between God and the world, to have a treasure on earth and a treasure in heaven too; please God and please men too. Why not? says the hypocrite; it is good to have two strings to one's bow. They hope to make their religion serve their secular interest, and so turn to account both ways. The pretending mother was for dividing the