Ye adulterers and adulteresses
Not who were literally such, but in a figurative and metaphorical
sense: as he is an adulterer that removes his affections from his
own wife, and sets them upon another woman; and she is an
adulteress that loves not her husband, but places her love upon
another man; so such men and women are adulterers and
adulteresses, who, instead of loving God, whom they ought to love
with all their hearts and souls, set their affections upon the
world, and the things of it: the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and
Ethiopic versions, leave out the word "adulteresses": these the
apostle addresses in the following manner;
know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with
God?
that an immoderate love for the good things of the world, and a
prevailing desire after the evil things of it, and a delight in
the company and conversation of the men of the world, and a
conformity to, and compliance with, the sinful manners and
customs of the world, are so many declarations of war with God,
and acts of hostility upon him; and show the enmity of the mind
against him, and must be highly displeasing to him, and resented
by him:
whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the
enemy of
God;
whoever is in league with the one must be an enemy to the other;
God and mammon cannot be loved and served by the same persons, at
the same time; the one will be loved, and the other hated; the
one will be attended to, and the other neglected: this may be
known both from reason and from Scripture, particularly from (
Matthew
6:24 ) .