William Burkitt Notes and Observations - James 5:5 - 5:5

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William Burkitt Notes and Observations - James 5:5 - 5:5


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The next sin he charges upon them, is sensuality, luxury, lasciviousness, their eating and drinking to excess in their feasts, pampering themselves for the slaughter and the shambles. These are sins very natural to corrupt nature, but chiefly incident to the rich. Pride, idleness, fulness of bread, and living in pleasure, are too frequently sins that do abound in rich men's houses: though their abundance is no excuse, but rather an aggravation of their sin.

God allows us to use pleasure, but not to live in pleasure; and by calling it pleasure upon earth, he intimates,

1. That sensual delights are only enjoyed here in this world: 2. That their desires ran after these earthly pleasures only:

The pleasures of the beast only pleased them; whereas the delights of sense are so far from being the chief pleasure for which God designed us, that, on the contrary, he intended we should take our chief pleasure, not in gratifying, but in restraining our sensual appetite, in reducing that rebellious power under the government and dominion of reason and religion.