ECCLESIASTES CHAPTER 7 A good name desirable; and the house of mourning and rebuke better than songs and laughter, ECCLESIASTES 7:1. Exhortations to patience and perseverance, ECCLESIASTES 7:7. Wisdom and money a defence, ECCLESIASTES 7:11,12. God's providence should render its contented: our duty b... [ Continue Reading ]
THE HOUSE OF MOURNING; where mourners meet together to celebrate the funerals of a deceased friend. _That_, to wit, death, the cause of that mourning, IS THE END OF ALL MEN; it brings men to the serious consideration of their last end, which is their greatest wisdom and interest. WILL LAY IT TO HIS... [ Continue Reading ]
SORROW; either for sin, or any outward troubles. THE SADNESS OF THE COUNTENANCE; which is seated in the heart, but manifested in the countenance. MADE BETTER; more weaned from the lusts and vanities of this world, by which most men are ensnared and destroyed, and more quickened to seek after and emb... [ Continue Reading ]
THE HEART OF THE WISE IS IN THE HOUSE OF MORNING, even when their bodies are absent. They are constantly, or very frequently, meditating upon sad and serious firings, such as death and judgment, the vanity of this life, and the reality and eternity of the next, because they know that these thoughts,... [ Continue Reading ]
THE REBUKE OF THE WISE, though it causeth some grief, yet frequently brings great benefit, even reformation and salvation, both from temporal and from eternal destruction, both which are the portion of impenitent sinners. THE SONG; the flatteries, or other merry discourses, which are as pleasant to... [ Continue Reading ]
THE CRACKLING OF THORNS, which for a time make a great noise and blaze, but presently waste themselves, and go out without any considerable effect upon the meat in the pot. SO; so vanishing and fruitless.... [ Continue Reading ]
OPPRESSION; either, 1. Active. When a wise man falls into the practice of this sin of oppressing others, he is besotted by it, and by the vast riches which he by his great wit gets by it. Or rather, 2. Passive. When a wise man is oppressed by foolish and wicked men, it makes him fret and rage, and... [ Continue Reading ]
If this verse relates to that next foregoing, it is an argument to keep men's minds from being disordered, either by oppression or bribery, because the end of those practices will show, that he who oppresseth another doth himself most hurt by it, and that he who taketh bribes is no gainer by them. B... [ Continue Reading ]
Be not angry with any man without due consideration, and just and necessary cause; for otherwise anger is sometimes lawful, and sometimes a duty. RESTETH; hath its settled and quiet abode, is their constant companion, ever at hand upon all occasions, whereas wise men resist, and mortify, and banish... [ Continue Reading ]
SAY NOT THOU, to wit, by way of impatient expostulation and complaint against God, either for permitting such disorders in the world, or for bringing thee into the world in such an evil time and state of things. Otherwise a man may say this by way of prudent and pious inquiry, that by searching out... [ Continue Reading ]
GOOD, i.e. very good; the positive being put for the superlative, as it is frequently in the Hebrew text. When wisdom and riches meet in one man, it is a happy conjunction; for wisdom without riches is commonly contemned, ECCLESIASTES 9:16, and wants opportunities and instruments of discovering itse... [ Continue Reading ]
IS A DEFENCE, Heb. _is a shadow_; which in Scripture use notes both protection and refreshment. And thus far wisdom and money agree. But herein knowledge or wisdom (which commonly signifies the same thing) excels riches, that whereas riches frequently expose men to death or destruction, true wisdom... [ Continue Reading ]
THE WORK OF GOD; not of creation, but of providence; his wise, and just, and powerful government of all events in the world, which is proposed as the last and best remedy against all murmurings and sinful disquietments of mind, under the sense of the great and many disorders which happen in the worl... [ Continue Reading ]
BE JOYFUL; enjoy God's favours with cheerfulness and thankfulness. CONSIDER, to wit, God's work, which is easily understood out of the foregoing verse. Consider that it is God's hand, and therefore submit to it; humble thyself under his hand, be sensible of it, and duly affected with it; consider al... [ Continue Reading ]
ALL THINGS; all sorts of events, both such as have been already mentioned, and such as I am about to declare. In the days my vanity; since I have come into this vain and transitory life. IN HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS; either, 1. Notwithstanding his righteousness; whom his righteousness doth not deliver in c... [ Continue Reading ]
This verse and the next have a manifest reference to ECCLESIASTES 7:15, being two inferences drawn from the two clauses of the observation there recorded. And this verse was delivered by Solomon, either, 1. In the name and person of an ungodly man, who taketh occasion to dissuade men from the practi... [ Continue Reading ]
BE NOT OVER-MUCH WICKED; do not take occasion, either from the impunity of sinners, ECCLESIASTES 7:15, or from the prohibition of excessive righteousness, to run into the contrary extreme, the defect of righteousness, or to give up thyself to the practice of all manner of wickedness, as the manner o... [ Continue Reading ]
TAKE HOLD OF, embrace and practise, _this_; this counsel last given, ECCLESIASTES 7:17. ALSO FROM THIS; from that foregoing advice, ECCLESIASTES 7:16. It is good to avoid both those extremes. WITHDRAW NOT THINE HAND from the practice of it. HE THAT FEARETH GOD, who ordereth his actions so as to plea... [ Continue Reading ]
WISDOM; true wisdom, which is always joined with the fear of God, and which teacheth a man to keep close to the rule of his duty, without turning either to the right hand or to the left. STRENGTHENETH THE WISE; supporteth him in and secureth him against troubles and dangers. TEN, i.e. many, uniting... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR; so this is a reason either, 1. Of the foregoing counsels, ECCLESIASTES 7:10, the 19th verse being interposed only as a proof of the last clause of ECCLESIASTES 7:18. Or, 2. To show the necessity and advantage of that wisdom commended ECCLESIASTES 7:19, because all men are very prone to folly a... [ Continue Reading ]
TAKE NO HEED; do not severely observe nor strictly search into them, nor listen to hear them, as many persons out of curiosity use to do. UNTO ALL WORDS THAT ARE SPOKEN, to wit, concerning thee, or against thee. Under this one kind of offences of the tongue, which are most frequent, he seems to unde... [ Continue Reading ]
HEART; mind or conscience, as that word is frequently used. HAST CURSED OTHERS; either upon some great provocation and sudden passion, or possibly upon a mere mistake, or false report; in which case thou hast both needed and desired the forbearance and forgiveness of others, and therefore by the rul... [ Continue Reading ]
ALL THIS, or _all these things_, of which I have here discoursed, HAVE I PROVED, I have diligently examined and found all this to be true, by wisdom; by the help of that singular wisdom which God had given me. I SAID, I WILL BE WISE; I determined within myself that I would by all possible means seek... [ Continue Reading ]
No human wit can attain to perfect wisdom, or to the exact knowledge of God's counsels and-works, and the reasons of them, because they are unsearchably deep, and far above our sight; some of them being long since past, and therefore, utterly unknown to us, and others yet to come, which we cannot fo... [ Continue Reading ]
I APPLIED MINE HEART; I was not discouraged, but provoked by the difficulty of the work to undertake it; which is an argument of a great and generous soul. TO KNOW, AND TO SEARCH, AND TO SEEK OUT; he useth three words signifying the same thing, to intimate his vehement desire and vigorous and unwear... [ Continue Reading ]
I FIND, by my own sad experience; which Solomon here records, partly as an instance of that folly and madness which he expressed in general, ECCLESIASTES 7:25, and partly as a testimony of his true repentance for his foul miscarriages, for which he was willing to take shame to himself, not only from... [ Continue Reading ]
BEHOLD; it is a strange thing, and worthy of your serious observation. THE PREACHER; or, _the penitent_, who speaks what he hath learned, both by deep, study and costly experience. COUNTING ONE BY ONE; considering things or persons very exactly and distinctly, one after another; and not only in gene... [ Continue Reading ]
MY SOUL SEEKETH; it seemed so wonderful to me, that I suspected I had not made a sufficient inquiry, and therefore I returned to search again with more earnestness and accurateness. I FIND NOT; that it was so he found out, as he now said, ECCLESIASTES 7:27 but the whole truth and reason of the thing... [ Continue Reading ]
THIS ONLY HAVE I FOUND; though I could not find out all the streams of wickedness, and their infinite windings and turnings in the world, yet I have discovered the fountain of it, to wit, original sin, and the corruption of nature, which is both in men and women. GOD HATH MADE MAN, God made our firs... [ Continue Reading ]