Wesley Corpus

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 very 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 all 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" (oi boulomenoi ploutein, 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;" -- epiqumias anohtous, 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 perdi- tion," 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!