Ecclesiastes 8:14

There is a vanity— After a long but useful digression (See on Ecclesiastes 8:8.) the author resumes the thread of his reasoning: but the second proof that he brings in to support this third proposition is so artfully connected with the latter part of the digression, that no chasm is to be perceived in the discourse. This second proof is taken from those wrong judgments which are owing to an over-hasty observation of things, and consists of two instances. The first instance is that of the practical inferences drawn by the sinners from what is daily observed under a bad government, viz. that the wicked, nay, the most abandoned men, are not punished according to their deserts, but enjoy even the honours of a funeral pomp, the last of earthly rewards: From thence the generality of men conclude, that evil may be committed with impunity: Ecclesiastes 8:9. Now, that this is a wrong judgment can appear from no other consideration than this, viz. that there is no sufficient ground, from that observation, to think that a man's being laid in his grave puts him out of the reach of punishment. It may, nay it must, be said to the contrary; and our author says he knows it, or concludes it from the very observation which the wicked wrest to their own purpose, that rewards and punishments shall certainly attend holiness and virtue on the one hand, and wickedness and impiety on the other; whence it follows that the prolongation of a life which must be attended with the continual dread of impending vengeance is a very slight advantage. Yet, on the other hand, it must be owned, that the seeming misapplication of rewards and punishments in this world, which, when duly considered, affords such strong presumptions of the existence of a future state, is for a hasty observer a vain principle, or the source of vain and dangerous conclusions. Ecclesiastes 8:11.