ECCLES. 12. 13.
This Book is one of Solomon’s Philosophical Discourses, containing such principal Observations about Human Affairs, as are apt to offer themselves to the thoughts of every serious considerate man, especially concerning those things which may more immediately either promote or hinder our Happiness.
This Text is the Conclusion which he infers upon the whole matter, that which is the most natural result of all such Debates and Enquiries.
In the former part he had taken into consideration those several states of life, to which men usually apply themselves for Happiness; namely, Learning and Wisdom, Mirth and Pleasures, Power and Greatness, Riches and Possessions: Each of which he doth by great variety of Arguments, prove to be vanity and vexation, and altogether insufficient to the End for which they are designed.
Then he takes notice of the several Accidents of life, whether they concern our Endeavours, or our Persons.
- For our Endeavours. The most likely means are not always effectual for the attaining of their End. The utmost that Human Councils and Prudence can provide for, is to take care, when they are to contend in a Race, that they be swifter than those who run against them; or when they are to fight a Battel, that they be stronger than those whom they are to encounter. And yet the Race is not always to the swift, nor the Battel to the strong; neither yet Bread (Chap. 9: 11, 12) to the wise, nor yet Riches to men of understanding, nor Favour to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all. (i. e.) There is a secret Providence which doth over-rule all those worldly events in such a manner, as is not accountable to Human Reason. Even amongst Secular Businesses, which we are apt to think most within our reach and compass, there is nothing so much under the power of the wisest Counsels and Endeavours, but that the Providence of God may interpose for the disappointing of it, and render it ineffectual.
And then for those Accidents to which our Persons are liable, He observeth these three things:
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Our obnoxiousness to Pain and Sickness, which he stiles by the names of Wrath and Sorrow; under which, (Ch. 5. 17) when a man lies languishing, none of his Worldly Enjoyments will signify any thing to him; nor will they be able to afford him any such ease or help, but that he may be thereby cut off in the midst of his days, and then all his thoughts perish, or else waste away a great part of his life with much anguish and weariness; and may sometimes, perhaps, be driven to that extremity by noisome and painful Diseases, as to chuse strangling and Death, rather than Life.
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If it be supposed, that by the strength and cheerfulness of a Man’s natural temper, he should escape these, & live many years, and rejoyce in them all; yet he must remember the days of darkness, which shall be many. (i. e.) (Ch. 11. 8) Those who devote themselves to continual Mirth and Pleasure, cannot yet avoid the thought of their future estates, what shall become of them hereafter, when they are to depart out of this World; but that the remembrance of this will be often thrusting into their Minds when ever they are retired and serious. And this being to them a dark obscure condition; concerning their wellbeing, in which they can have no reasonable hopes, must needs therefore be a great damp and allay to all their other Enjoyments.
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But in the third place: Suppose a man should be able to avoid sickness, and to put the trouble of these thoughts likewise far from him; yet there is somewhat else which he cannot possibly decline, Old Age will unavoidably steal upon him, with all the infirmities of it; When the grinders shall be few, and appetite cease; (Ch. 12. 3) when those who look out of the windows, shall be darkned, and the keepers of the house shall tremble: when a man shall become a burden to himself, and to his friends; when those of his nearest Relations, whom he hath most obliged by kindness, shall think it time for him to depart unto his long home, to creep off the Stage, (Ch. 12. 5) and make room for succeeding Generations; and then, after a little Funeral-pomp of the Mourners going about the streets,, a man shall be buried out of the way, and forgotten: for there is no remembrance of the (Ch. 2. 16) wise, more than of the fool; seeing that which now is, in the days to come shall be forgotten. Every Generation producing somewhat which seems new and strange, to take up Men’s talk and wonder, and to drown the Memory of former Persons and Actions. And I appeal to any rational man, Whether these are not some of the most material reflections that occur about Human Affairs.