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A57129
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Annotations on the book of Ecclesiastes
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Reynolds, Edward, 1599-1676.
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1669
(1669)
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Wing R1238; ESTC R26989
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179,441
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418
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apt to say if the dayes of darkness be so many let us not make them more then they are by denying our selves the pleasures of light but let us freely indulge to our selves all our delights and live to the length of our desires 1 Cor. 15.32 whereunto Solomon answereth in these words 1. By way of Concession 2. By way of sad and severe praemonition The Concession some would have to be real and serious as if he had said I would not discourage thee from the use of lawfull pleasures nor debar thee such contents as the flower of thine age do call for only I would have thee carefull not to exceed the bounds of temperance and moderation but by the vanity of things present and certainty of future judgement to compose thy mind to sobriety in enjoying and to a readiness to depart from these vain delights as Gal. 5.13 1 Pet. 2.16 enjoy pleasures but be not drowned in them use honest delights but be not a slave unto them Thou seest that all here is Vanity that the fashion of this world the power wealth honour pleasures strength health beauties thereof all vanish and pass away that all of us must be brought before Gods tribunal and all our actions undergo a severe tryal therefore let it be thy chiefest care to provide for that account But the place is much more Emphatical if we understand the Concession Ironically as 1 Reg. 18.27 22.15 Ezek. 28.3 4. Matth. 26.45 Since thou art wilfull and scornfull take thy course Rejoyce in thy youth or because thou art young strong healthfull and thy bones full of marrow Job 21.23 24. And let thine heart cheer thee Symmachus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let it be wholly in good or in delights and walk in the wayes of thy heart and in the sight of thine eyes Do what thou pleasest let thy wanton and wandring eye enflame the lusts of thy heart and let thy sensual heart give law to thy whole man deny not thy self any thing which heart can wish or eye look on Numb 15.39 1 Joh. 2.16 2 Pet. 2.14 3.2 Ezek. 23.16 Josh. 7.21 Jer. 18.12 Psal. 81.12 Job 21.7 Thus sharply doth the Lord deride the pride and folly of young men in their career of Lust and Vanity and as it were give them over to their own hearts desires Prov. 1.24 28. Rom. 1.28 But know thou Though thou Endeavour to blind thine own eyes with sensual delights to smother thy conscience and to baffle those principles of fear and restraint which God hath planted in thee Though thou wouldst not see yet thou shalt see and know to thy cost Isa. 26.11 1 Reg. 22.25 2 Pet. 3.5 that for All these things For all the sins vanities and excesses of thy youth for all those things which are now so gratefull to thy senses though they please thine eye they will gnaw and sting thy conscience Job 13.26 Psal. 25.7 God whose Word and fear thou now despisest from whose eye thou canst not hide thy sins from whose Tribunal thou canst not withdraw thy conscience will bring thee Perforce whether thou wilt or no when thou shalt in vain call to Mountains and Rocks to hide thee Rev. 6.16 Luk. 23.30 into judgement The Judgement of the great day Jude vers 6. called the Terrour of the Lord 2 Cor. 5.10 Act. 17.30 the consideration whereof should abate the heat of lust and cause the heart of young men to tremble at the wrath to come V. 10. Therefore remove sorrow from thine heart and put away evil from thy flesh for childhood and youth are vanity This is not to be understood Ironically as the former words of the verse foregoing nor in that sense but seriously as a seasonable precept unto young men who are of all other men by reason of the heat of their blood subject unto passions and unto pleasures the one seated in the heart the other in the flesh◠from both which he doth here forewarn them Remove sorrow or anger and indignation from thine heart If we read it sorrow then hereby is meant all those sinfull pleasures which though the deceitfull heart look on as matter of joy yet will certainly fill the heart with sorrow at the last Prov. 14.13 If Anger or Indignation then the meaning is that he should restrain all Inordinate passions and perturbations of mind especially take heed of swelling or storming at the will and wayes of God or at any serious advice minding him thereof James 1.19 Job 6.24 and put away evil sinfull lusts from thy flesh From thy bodily members Rom. 6.13 1 Cor. 6.15 2 Cor. 7.1 1 Pet. 2.11 2 Tim. 2.22 and so some understand the word flesh in the sense as it is used Ezek. 16.26 23.20 2 Pet. 2.10 Jude vers 23. for childhood and youth are vanity The reason of this advice drawn from the vanishing condition of youth and the pleasures thereof Youth is but as the Aurora or early morning of a day quickly gone from thence to noon and from noon to night therefore care should be used to spend it in such a manner as that we may have an abiding fruit and pleasure which will not vanish with the years which were consumed in the pursuance of it CHAP. XII IN this Chapter the Wise man proceedeth to demonstrate this Vanity of youth and old age which quickly run into Death And then concludeth the whole Book He had before by an Emphatical Ironie deterred Young men from those inordinate passions and sensual pleasures which that slippery age is most subject unto and that by the Consideration of that dreadfull account which in the last Judgement God will require of them And because that age of of all other is most apt to put the evil day far from them and to look on Death and Judgement as at a great distance as evil men use to do Ezek. 12.27 2 Pet. 3.3 4. Amos 6.3 therefore he doth by a Prolepsis prevent that shift Young men might be apt to say the things you press us unto are good but we shall have time enough before Judgement come to think of them old age will be a fit season to draw off from the world and to draw nigh to God Solomon here perswades from so dangerous a Resolution shewing the necessity of seeking and serving God in our youth in regard old age will be very unfit to begin so great a work in Whereupon he sheweth 1. The Vanity of Old age setting it forth by a large and an elegant Allegory and by other expressions Vers. 2 6. 2. He presseth the same duty by another argument from the approach of death which taketh away all means of Repentance and conversion vers 7. And having thus by an Induction of many particulars shewed the Vanity both of the Creatures here below and of the Condition of man under the Sun who were they never so excellent could not long enjoy them He doth conclude the whole book 1. With resuming his first conclusion vers
meaner men Let not thy pitcher and thy wheel take thee off from minding the things of another and a better life Others carry on the Allegory making these things figurative and elegant expressions of death and of those evils which immediately forego it to wit the dissolution of those parts which are most vital for death as in the storming or battering of a Garrison doth first break and weaken the out-works the bodily limbs and outward senses and and after that sets upon the in-works and the Vitals He here compareth Life unto a Fountain or Well out of which men draw water with a Cord a bowl or bucket a pitcher and a wheel And as when these are broken we can draw water no more so when the Vital parts are decayed there is no hope longer to draw life into the body which is the Cistern This Life he compares for the pretiousness of it unto silver and gold for the weakness and fragility of it unto a pitcher and for the inâ—â—ability and unsetledness of it unto a wheel Now besides this general proportion between life and these things as the figures of it Interpreters do make the particulars here mentioned to answer unto some particulars in the vital parts of the body 1. By the silver Cord they understand the marrow or pith of the back continued from the brain as it were in a cord or string unto the bottom of the back-bones and for the white colour of it compared unto silver It may also be applyed unto all the other Sinews and Ligaments of the body which from the head as the Fountain convey sense and motion upon the other parts Hereby also may not unfitly be understood the chain and sweet harmony of the Elements and humors in the body which being preserved in its due proportion the body doth receive life from the Soul which is the Spring thereof but being once dissolved life presently faileth 2. By the Golden bowl they understand the Meninx or skin wherein the brain and vital powers thereof are contained as in a bowl Others understand the blood which is in the heart as in the pretious Fountain of life Schindler rendreth it Scaturigo Auri or aurea would have us thereby to understand the Law of God which is compared unto Gold but the word is elsewhere used to signifie a vessel Zach. 4.2 3. 3. By the fountain we may understand those principal parts from whence vital supplyes are drawn into the body as from the Head Sense and motion from the Heart spirits and heat from the liver blood 4. By the pitchâ—r and the wheel those Instrumental and subservient parts which from these convey those supplyes into the several vessels of the body as into a Cistern as the veins blood from the Liver the arteries spirits from the heart the Sinews motion and sense from the brain By all which we should learn to draw water of life out of the Wells of Salvation that out of our belly may flow rivers of living water through the continual supplyes of the Spirit of grace that all our springs may be in Christ and our life hidden with him in God Isa. 14.3 66.11 12. Zach. 13. 1. John 4.14 7.38 39. In the second Chapter Solomon had shewed us The many choice varieties of pleasure riches and other excellent outward blessings in which he had sought for contentment and in this Chapter he hath in a most elegant Allegory shewed us how quickly old age doth break them all and take away the comfort of them V. 7. Then shall the Dust return to the Earth as it was and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it The Dust that is The body to shew the Original of it Gen. 2.7 The weakness of it dust is the weakest part of earth Ps. 103.14 The baseness and vileness of it Job 4.19 Phil. 3.21 Gen. 18.17 Job 30.19 Our Original from the dust Our Return unto the dust should humble us and make us vile in our own eyes and should warn us to make haste to secure a better life before this be ended and not to put off the endeavours towards it unto old age which haply we may never attain unto and if we do will bring it self work enough for us to do Death is swift and uncertain Sin the longer lived in doth the more harden Repentance is not in our Call or command when we please and it is a work of the whole man and the vvhole life The vvork deferred vvill be greater the time to do it in vvill be shorter the strength to do it by vvill be less bodily infirmities vvill disable spiritual actions God vvill have less honour and service from us and vve shall have more sorrovv and less comfort Therefore remember thy Creator before the Dust return to the Earth vvhence it came And the spirit shall return unto God who gave it The Soul is called a Spirit to note the Immaterial substance of it and its original It came from him who is the Father of Spirits Heb. 12.9 Gen. 2.7 shall return unto God that gave it Ut stet Iudicio ante Deum That it may appear before his Tribunal to be judged as the Chaldee well paraphraseth the place As certainly as the body goes unto the dust so certainly the Soul returneth unto God to be judged The godly are translated into Paradise into Abrahams bosome into the condition of Just men made perfect Luke 16.22 and 23.34 Heb. 12.23 The wicked into the prison of disobedient spirits reserved there in Hell unto the Judgement of the great day Luke 16.23 1 Pet. 3.19 V. 8. Vanity of Vanities saith the Preacher All is Vanity As Mathematicians having made their demonstration do then resume their principal conclusion with a quod erat demonstrandum so here the Wise man having made a large and distinct demonstration That the Happiness of man doth not stand in Any or in All the Contents which the World can afford both in regard of their disproportion unto him and their discontinuance with him He doth hereby conclude his discourse 1. With a confident affirming what he had in the beginning undertaken to prove 2. With a strong and solid vindication thereof from any Cavils which might yet arise in the minds of men against it 3. With a positive Conclusion containing the sum of the whole Book and the right means unto true Happiness indeed V. 9. And moreover because the Preacher was wise he still taught the people knowledge yea he gave good heed and sought out and set in order many Proverbs V. 10. The Preacher sought to find out Acceptable words and that which was written was upright even words of truth Here Solomon commendeth the doctrine taught in this Book 1. Because it was the doctrine of a penitent Convert for Repentance is an excellent means to discern and acknowledge spiritual truth 2 Tim. 2.25 James 1.21 2. Because he was indued with wisdome from God so that they came and sent from remote