14. O _how hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God_! When our Lord’s disciples were astonished at his speaking thus, he was so far from retracting it, that he repeated the same important truth, in stronger terms than before. _It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God._ *How hard is it for them whose every word is applauded, not to be wise in their own eyes! How hard, for them not to think themselves better than the poor, base, uneducated herd of men! How hard, not to seek happiness in their riches, or in things dependent upon them; in gratifying the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life! O ye rich, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?――Only with God all things are possible. 15. *And even if you do not succeed, what is the fruit of your _endeavouring_ to lay up treasures on earth? _They that will be rich_ (αἱ βουλόμενοι πλουτεῖν, they that desire, that endeavour after it, whether they succeed or no) _fall into a temptation and a snare_, a gin, a trap of the devil, _and into many foolish and hurtful lusts_; ἐπὶ θυμίας ἀνοήτους, desires with which reason hath nothing to do; such as properly belong, not to rational and immortal beings, but only to the brute-beasts, which have no understanding: _which drown men in destruction and perdition_, in present and eternal misery. Let us but open our eyes, and we may daily see the melancholy proofs of this: men, who desiring, resolving to be rich, _coveting after money, the root of all evil, have_ already _pierced themselves through with many sorrows_, and anticipated the hell to which they are going. *The cautiousness with which the apostle here speaks, is highly observable. He does not affirm this absolutely of _the rich_; for a man may possibly be rich, without any fault of his, by an over-ruling providence, preventing his own choice. But he affirms it of οἱ βουλόμενοι πλουτεῖν. _Those who desire_ or seek _to be rich_. Riches, dangerous as they are, do not always _drown men in destruction and perdition_. But the _desire of riches_ does: those who calmly desire and deliberately seek to attain them, whether they do, in fact, gain the world or no, do infallibly lose their own souls. These are they, that sell him who bought them with his blood, for a few pieces of gold or silver. These enter into a covenant with death and hell: and their covenant shall stand. For they are daily making themselves meet to partake of their inheritance with the devil and his angels.