-- CHAPTER I: The exposition of the words
man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.—
ECCLES. 7:23–29
CHAPTER I:
The exposition of the words I CAST not here into this account that unsearchable mine of our inherent and original sinfulness, which was inlaid as deep as the centre of our souls, from our conception and nativity. The survey is now only of those heaps of actual sinnings, which from and out of that mine are every day minted, and bear the image and superscription of sin stamped on them, and are ordinarily current in our hearts and lives.
This distinction between actual sins as the effects, and inherent sin of our nature (which we call original sin), as also a state of sin, as the causes that do defile the whole of a person unregenerate, is so well known and received, as it need not be insisted on. It may suffice, that Christ doth exactly thus distinguish, in saying, 'An evil tree brings forth evil fruit,' which explaining, he applies to an 'evil man' (there is his state), 'out of the evil treasure' (that is, of his natural and acquired inherent corruption as the causes) 'brings forth evil things'
(as the fruits). And our Saviour, by these evil fruits, professeth to mean as well evil thoughts, the immediate issues of the heart, as outward actings, whether in speech, as false witness, blasphemies; or in outward facts, as murders, thefts; in all which he particularly there instanceth; and all these as distinct evils from the evil heart or treasure itself they all proceed out of; thus Mat. 15:19. The apostles were likewise careful to indigitate the very same as a necessary distinction, for us heedfully to observe in ourselves, whilst they speak one while of our being 'dead in sin,' and the 'uncircumcision of the
flesh,' Col. 3:9 (as the state), and then besides of 'dead works,' Heb.
6:1, 'works of the flesh,' Gal. 5:19 (as the fruits thereof), and under that term of fruits expressly, ver. 22, as the opposition there sheweth; as also when we read in them of an 'old man and his deeds,' as Col.
3:9.
Although many other Scriptures presented themselves as texts or foundations unto that subject I have before me, yet I chose this ensuing.
Solomon, the wisest of men, and whose large understanding had acquired and comprehended within itself as many several notions and matters of knowledge as there be sands upon the sea shore, 1
Kings 4:30, after a long and sore travel, which by the conduct of that his wisdom he had performed, and passed through the vast regions of things knowable, and made the most exquisite search into all foreign parts of wisdom that lay out of himself, as the works of God in nature, providence, or that belonged to human societies and affairs, in all the kinds of them, he at last (as of the prodigal it is spoken) 'came home to himself,' and by a renewed work of a more thorough repentance descended into himself, and 'the chambers of the belly,' Prov. 20:27, his own soul.
And as the whole book of Ecclesiastes is a testimony of his repentance, and his being gathered to the church, so this one solemn paragraph, from ver. 23 to the end of this chapter, is a narrative to shew what this his last study had been, and how it first began, and had been continued by him in the search of his own, and upon occasion thereof of all mankind's sinfulness, which to be the mind of Solomon in these words will appear by the opening of them, which I reduce to these heads.
1. The narration which Solomon gives of his coming off from the study of all other wisdom, and applying himself to this of sinfulness, in vers. 23–25.
2. What is meant by the reason and account spoken, vers. 25, 27, 29.
3. That it is the reason or account of his own personal folly and wickedness, which, in the first place and principally, he intended.
4. He declares what had been the issue and success of that his new search and study, and the product he had brought that account unto, whether of his own or other's sinfulness, in vers.
26–29.
1. In vers. 23, 24, he relates what had been the great inquisition of the former part of his life; 'all this I proved,' that is, whatever before of knowledge he had been ever exercised and versed in. All this that he had treated of in this book, even all, and the whole that lay within the sphere and capacity of being known, 'I proved by wisdom,' that is, I attempted in the most industrious way to comprehend, and exercised myself thereto, both by the improvement of all such inward principles of infused wisdom, given me by God extraordinarily, and those as accompanied and heightened by all outward advantages
(which being a king furnished him withal), whereby to try all conclusions either of art or in nature. Yea, and I had, says he, set it down with myself as the mark of my life, as the eminent excellency I affected and resolved to attain a perfection in; 'I said I will be wise,' finding myself empowered thereto by all those abilities and advantages to attain it. Well, but what was the issue of all? but that after all this labour spent that way, he found how infinitely short he was from an arrival at it, or the compassing of it; 'but it was far from me,' and thereupon shuts up that pursuit of his with this advice to all adventurers and travellers after him in this kind: 'That which is far off and exceeding deep' (deep deep, as the Hebrew), 'who can find it out?' thus ver. 24.
Thereupon in ver. 25 he sets before all such, and all others, his own example; how he had (though late first) betaken himself unto
another kind of wisdom, more useful and necessary, which was the search into his own wickedness or sinfulness; and together therewith, that which is in all mankind. Thus ver. 25, 'I applied my heart;'* that is, I came or turned about, or converted myself and my heart from the former study unto this, namely, 'to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason.' But of what? It follows, 'and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness.' The general mind of which is, that the subject of this, his new inquiry, had been the same which the great convert (the apostle, at his conversion), his thoughts were taken up withal, 'the abovemeasure sinfulness of sin,' as Rom. 7:10, 13. So in like manner
Solomon came to see the abounding of folly and madness, and saw wickedness upon wickedness, 'heaps upon heaps' (as the phrase is,
Judges 15), madness added to folly (madness being an excess of folly), and he went to sum up and search out the account of all.
The Hebrew word being (as Jerome long since observed) ambiguous, and signifying as well the number or account as the reason of a thing; hence I take both to be intended; and so that both the sum and computation, as also the reason or bottom-ground of all that wickedness, to have been the aim and mark of his so eager pursuit.
And according unto these two acceptations of this one word, I make an answerable division of the words following to be,
1. His study: to compute with himself the numerical account, that is, the infinite number and variety his sinfulness did arise unto, from ver. 26 to the middle of ver. 28.
2. The rational ground, which gave bottom-light and discovery of the reason of that sinfulness, and innumerableness thereof, whether in himself or in all mankind, which is fully set down in ver. 29.
I may term the one the arithmetical account, the other the logical; and he pursueth the first in the former part, and closeth with the second in the last verse.
There is a second division subalternate, and included in this first, as the more general. For whereas he says, ver. 25, he sought after the account or reason of wickedness, the next inquiry necessary will be the wickedness, of whom? or whose it was that was the matter of this account? And the answer hereunto causeth this other division of the words, as to the matter of the account taken, whether in the one or other sense.
1st, His own: the sinfulness of himself in his former ways discovered now upon his repentance, and this chiefly.
2dly, But together therewith, of that universal corruption of all mankind in both sexes.
And these two you have interwoven and carried on in the following verses, namely, 1, the account of his own, vers. 26, 27, to the middle of 28; 2, the account and observation he made of others, chiefly in that which follows in the remaining part of vers. 28 and 29.
I. He begins, and principally, with the account of his own sinfulness, and that was it which he professeth to have sought more directly after, and as for that of others, but as led into it by occasion of considering his own follies. And because this is a matter not insisted on (though cursorily observed) by interpreters, I shall therefore enlarge upon the proof of it out of ver. 26.
You may observe to this purpose in this 26th verse the saddest reflection made upon himself, and in that which had been the eminent failure and stain of his life, known to all, and noticed again and again in the story of him in the Old Testament: 'I find more bitter than death,' says he, 'the woman whose heart is snares and nets,' &c. He speaks not contemplatively, this; but the most feelingly, and with the deepest sense he could bewail in it, 'I find more bitter than death;' q.d. I would, if my time were mine own again, and afore me, to live over again, choose far rather to die than so to have lived.
Bitterness is the most abhorred object that any of the senses have,
and death is the extremity of things abhorred, and that it is his own sinfulness that way, that circumstantial passage in ver. 28 confirms, that he had 'not found one woman of a thousand' (which is the exact number of his women upon roll, 1 Kings 11:3), whom he had conversed withal, so pointing at himself. And further, he acknowledgeth this to have been a great effect of God's displeasure on him, and punishment of other sins whilst he had so walked, in saying, 'Whoso is good (or greatly accepted) in the sight of God, shall escape from her;' that is, altogether escape, which he had not the favour from God altogether to do; yet withal celebrating this special token of his having been beloved of God in this, that in the end he had escaped from her, through this his serious and true repentance; and therefore professeth to utter this and what follows as a penitent gathered soul unto the church again, ver. 27. For that that indigitation of his, thus says the preacher, doth import so much, is enough known, that I need not insist on it. And ordinarily when it is brought in this book (which is not often), it foreruns or follows some weighty matter of penitence, or of feeling experience in himself. Nor indeed can we imagine that when his heart was tender, as it was when he wrote this book, even as Josiah's in reading the book of the law, and that when he professeth to have given over the impetuous search after other wisdom, on purpose to convert his heart to attend his searching into wickedness and folly, that he should not principally intend his own. And again, that speaking of a matter that came so near him, and so particularly home to him (as what he hereabout says of women doth), that his main scope should yet be to reflect upon the sins of others, and study them; to observe the beams in others' eyes, and not first and principally those pearls (as one wittily said of David's love of Bathsheba) in his own. In this case, could his principal aim be supposed to be only to declaim against and set forth the sinfulness of women, more than to lament his own in that particular? Sure it is that he winds in the mention of them, and their wickedness that wound him in, but to exaggerate his own.
It is certainly therefore his own account he intends.
The most interpreters do dilute the true vigour and spirit that filled Solomon's heart in this so eminently a penitential passage, whilst they represent Solomon to speak but as an observator or animadverter of what wickedness he, as a stander-by and looker-on, had noticed to be in women, as if himself had been no otherwise concerned therein. And they generally make no more of it. Whereas we find Solomon here 'in his mouth,' and a being 'in bitterness and mourning,' as the prophet speaks, in a deep bewailment of his own follies. This learned Grotius easily perceived, choosing to leave this sole animadversion upon it: We have Solomon here brought in as one touched (or struck) with the conscience of his own miscarriages and evil actings, of which chiefly women were the cause and actors of him. Some few other interpreters there are that speak more fully to this aim, whom I need not name; and many there are that have touches and glimmerings towards such a sense, which yet we find darkened and overcast again by their runnings out upon this other interpretation.
But that Solomon's eye and aim in this sad passage was chiefly upon his own sinnings, there are many things laid together do evince.
1. That his sins with and by occasion of outlandish women, had been the eminent stain of his life is so known as it needs not to be insisted upon. The story of him doth again and again notice it, as 1 Kings 11:2, that Solomon 'clave unto these in love;' and long after he was dead, the memory of his example is revived, and that as a rare and singular instance for admonition: Neh. 13:26, 'Even him did outlandish women cause to sin.' How, then, can we imagine that himself here, not mentioning only, but so vehemently exclaiming against them as snares and occasions unto sin, should not intend his own sinnings with them, which the Scriptures so brand him with?
And, 2. His own expression points us to that which after follows; those very women of his, whom the story mentions to have been temptations to him. This that circumstance in ver. 28 shews, 'One woman of a thousand' (as the opposition there to one of a thousand
men shews), 'I have not found,' which is the just exact number of his women in his seraglio upon record, 1 Kings 11:3, as those whom he had conversed withal; thus plainly pointing at himself and them. And then, 3. It is the most generally received opinion that he wrote this book as a testimony of his repentance; which, besides that the matter of it is a perfect decrying of all he had formerly acted, as vanity; the title also which he gives both the book and himself, so often repeated by him,
'Thus says the penitent soul gathered to the church,' shews, and which you may observe to be in the very next verse indigitated by him, upon this very occasion of searching into his sinfulness. And I call it his penitential mark (of which afterwards). Can we then imagine, that when his heart was tender, as in writing this his book it was (as Josiah's, in reading the book of the law), that he here coming, so setly, to speak of a matter that came, above all other, so near him, and so particularly home to him, as what here about women doth, that the chief intention of his mind should be upon the sins he had observed in these women, and not upon his own sins with them, and by reason of them? Or that his scope, above all, should be to observe the beams in their eyes, and not first and principally those pearls in his own? (as one wittily speaks of David's, calling Bathsheba a pearl in one eye, and his murder a bloodshot in the other). It is true, he exclaims against the sins of his women, but it is to exaggerate and lament his own.
But these are but general evidences, though making this probable, if not more than so.
II. Let us consider the particular words in the text: he that sounds into them with the fathoming line, may find and fathom a soul heavy loaden with the burden of sin, and drawing a deep water (as seamen use to speak) of the sensibleness thereof. Let us consider every word in it.
1. And out of the sense of his own bitterness within himself, he utters this here, 'I find more bitter the woman,' &c. He says, indeed, the woman, but metonymically means, that together with them, the remembrance of his sins was bitter to him, the sins which they had been the means and causes of in him. Sin being once revived in the conscience, makes the remembrance of every person, place, thing, that minds him of it, bitter to an humbled soul.
2. And sin I find more bitter. He speaks not contemplatively this, as men use to do their observations or animadversions of the sins of others; but he speaks his own sense and personal experience, I find it to my cost. 'The heart knows its own bitterness,' says the same
Solomon, Prov. 14:10. It was the bitterness of his own soul that tasted the bitterness of his own sin, which his soul had wrought, not others. I may apply that of the prophet to him, 'His own wickedness corrected him,' and let him 'know how evil and bitter a thing it was to sin against the Lord,' Jer. 2:19. And with such a sense he speaks it (as the prophet Zechariah speaks of the Jews, repentance for crucifying
Christ); he was 'in bitterness and in mourning, as one that is in bitterness for his only son,' Zech. 12:10; or as of that famous penitent, who is said to have 'wept bitterly,' Mat. 26:25.
3. More bitter than death. It is one disposition of a repenting soul that truly feels the bitterness of sin, to say with itself, I had rather die, and die ten thousand deaths, than sin again as I have done. And to this effect Solomon expresseth himself here, 'I find more bitter than death;' which is too deep a speech for any but a penitent to utter, and then only in the case of his own sins. Bitterness is the most abhorred object any of the senses have; and death is the extremity of things abhorred (unto which, therefore, bitterness is ascribed by way of particularity, 1 Sam. 15:32); but here is a bitterness above that of death.
4. Nor means he only bodily death, but the second death, hell itself.
'Her end is more bitter than wormwood; for her steps take hold on hell,' says the same Solomon, Prov. 5:5. And the wormwood that
grows in and about the banks of that infernal lake (the wrath of God), was not so bitter to Solomon's taste as was his sin that grew out of his own heart. And a more sublimated property and affection of a genuine and spiritual repentance (and which is indeed proper to it) there is not to be found, than to taste a greater bitterness in sin than is in hell itself. Yet to this degree of soundness was Solomon's spiritual taste restored, when he spake this; and it could come from no other than a true penitential frame and disposition, which he must be likewise in at that time whilst he was speaking of it. For it is one of the most raised evangelical affections an holy heart can exercise, as towards sin, that the apostle's pen could reach to express this by, ἀποστυ· γοῦντες τὸ πονηρὸν, Rom. 12:9, which words import, abhorring evil as hell, from στὺξ, and more than hell, says
Solomon.
III. The next words, 'whose heart is snares and nets,' 'whose hands are bands.
Both which do make up but one continued sentence with the former words, and therefore are still necessarily to be understood that he speaks of what himself had found that sex, the women, to have been unto him: 'I find the woman more bitter than death, whose heart is nets,' &c.; and therein shews wherein the bitterness he had found lay, namely, from the snares and nets wherewith they had seduced him unto sins. And though he seems to speak of the wickedness that was in their hearts, in saying, 'whose heart is,' &c., yet not singly or simply as it was immanent in them, or had been acted within themselves, but mainly, to signify how operative and potent they had been upon his heart, which those metaphors do principally import.
These nets, though woven by their hearts, yet were to catch his heart, which, when framed once, they used as drags to draw him unto such sins as otherwise were against his heart ever to have committed.
Moreover, by these nets and snares that ensnared himself, he doth not simply mean the inordinacy of his amorous affections towards them, or the sinful pleasures which had immediately flowed from
those affections and enjoyments (which yet the story first notes as the rise of that which now follows to be mentioned, in prefacing to that story, that Solomon 'clave to these in love,' 1 Kings 11:2), but chiefly his heart here was upon those consequential sins, which they, working upon that love, drew him into. And that is it which the following part of the story wholly insists on, as the dreadful effects of those his loves. For it immediately follows in vers. 3, 4, 'His wives turned away his heart,' namely, through that love; 'for Solomon went after Ashteroth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites,' ver. 5. Not that he was an idolater himself, for in ver. 6, it is as by diminution thereof said, that 'he went not fully after the Lord;' implying himself forsook not the worship of the true God. But, vers. 7, 8, the matter of fact charged on him is,
'Then did Solomon build a place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of Ammon. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense, and sacrificed to their gods, even of all the nations round about,' ver. 2. Note, for them, not for himself. And unto this with their nets they drew him, and with their drags pulled him out of the element his heart was in, which was his life, the commandments of God, ver. 10, the iniquity of which, and the aggravations of it, no tears of repentance could enough lament. That one circumstance (besides what God himself doth aggravate his sin by, vers. 9–11, which I leave to the reader to peruse), I only mention, that he had built those idol temples upon an 'hill before Jerusalem,' so, ver. 7, as thereby even out-facing God himself, such was the spiteful ambition of the devil. Of God who sat between the cherubims in the temple, built on the opposite hill Zion, insomuch that God could not 'look out of his holy place' (as the phrase in the psalms is), but his prospect just before it must be these profane temples and their idols: Ezek. 43:8, 'Post by post' exalted Christ and Belial. This fact came very far up to the open breach of the very letter of the first commandment, 'Thou shalt have none other God before my face' (so in the Hebrew), yea, and against my face, as the original words will also bear.
Moreover, how many persons, by his kingly authority, were set awork to build those temples for those several gods of his several wives? and so thereby he became guilty of so many sins to himself as there were persons employed by him, or actions of those persons about it, or assistants in the work; as also in carving those images, adorning those temples or high-places. Also, at what an excessive cost and expense he must be supposed to have been at, not only to maintain so great a seraglio of seven hundred princesses, and three hundred concubines, and their retinue, 1 Kings 11:3; but further, to build stately temples, high places, make provision for sacrifices, idol feasts, and then afford a liberal allowance to so many several idolatrous priests and devotaries for their several worships; and all aggravated by this, that he thereby increased the taxes of the people, who, the story notes, had been sufficiently already burthened for the finishing of the temple, and his own houses and provisions, 1 Kings
4:7, but 'the yoke grew more grievous' by these new occasions, 1 Kings 12:4.
O, what is man! that ever he that built the temple of God by God's special designment of him thereto, above all men else, yea, and rather than of his father David; and who uttered and penned that first most excelling prayer at the consecration of it, 1 Kings 8; that that same man should be so bewitched as to build temples to devils, and that in such a place! I But it was these nets and snares drew him to all this.
It hath been wondered at by some interpreters why Solomon, in the rehearsal of all other vanities, as music, pleasant orchards, gardens, wine, and other the delights of the sons of men, in the first and second chapters, should leave out the mention of these his women there. But the reason may appear that he reserved his repentance for these sins that followed the inordinate love of them unto this, as a more peculiar proper place for it, thereby to make it the more singular and notorious, to that place, when he should more setly come to mention the account of wickedness and sin, and to express the work of humiliation upon himself for it; which he accordingly
sets out, not only as 'vanity of vanities,' &c., above all his vanities (these were terms too low to his sense to utter this by), but loads his sins herein with the worst of words he could,—folly, madness, wickedness: as also, that their temptations had been that unto his very soul what nets are to fishes and fowls, in which they are caught to their ruin,—'she hunts for the precious life,' Prov. 6:26,—or else what snares or toils are unto wild beasts, made to be taken and destroyed. Also, he compares them to bonds and chains, in which either enslaved captives or persons condemned to death are kept and reserved unto execution: instruments of death all, and of death unto the soul. Oh it is bitter (says he here), and reacheth to the heart (as the prophet adds), 'more bitter than death;' and he means not the first death only, as I shewed, but hell itself. So that what the apostle speaks of covetousness, that it is not only a great evil in itself, but also 'the root of all evil' to some men, drawing on with it a world of other sins, as consequents thereof; such was this one sin, the love of his wives, unto Solomon, which, besides and beyond what inordinacy was singly and alone in that way of sinning in and by itself, it proved a root of evil, of many other evils to him, a mother of great abominations. He fell into temptation and a snare, &c., but I shall have occasion again to parallel that place and this.
IV. Those other two passages in the close of the verse, 'Whoso pleaseth God,' or 'who is good in the sight and face of God, shall escape from her: but the sinner shall be taken by her;' these may seem in the manner of his uttering them to be far remote from containing any penitential strain in them, and to be but merely two doctrinal aphorisms and monitories given to others of the sons of men as touching these sins.
And yet, so taken, they express to this effect, that a man's being given to such low, vile, and foolish lustings and affections of this kind, is a more special token of God's severe anger and displeasure against that man, and a punishment from God of other preceding sins* and looseness of spirit in another kind, and a severer punishment by far than any outward judgments in estate, body, &c. This I understand to
be the spirit and mind of those words, 'The sinner shall be taken by her.' Where, by sinner, I understand one that is and hath been by way of eminency such; one that is guilty in other kinds of sinnings to some special degree, by giving way to other lasts, and not strictly or only to be limited to any mere unregenerate man; and his purpose is to shew that there is usually a great displeasure towards any man from God by reason of former sins, that is entangled in such lustings as these, and this likewise so far as he is entangled in them. And those opposite words, 'Whoso pleaseth God shall escape' (that is, altogether escape, or at least so far as to be kept from those inordinacies in this kind), do confirm this interpretation, signifying that it is both a singular special token of God's grace, favour, and acceptation of such a man; as also that it is a special fruit and reward of former strict and exact walking,* the words well bearing each of these interpretations, of the first of which we shall have use afterwards. And though Solomon's case here was not utterly that which himself elsewhere speaks of: Prov. 22:14, 'A strange woman,' saith he, 'is a deep ditch; and he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein.' This, I say, was not utterly Solomon's case, for though they were outlandish women, yet they had been taken into his bosom as wives (inasmuch as some apply these two sentences of Solomon here; the 1st, unto the blessing to have good wives, and to escape bad; and the 2d, unto the curse of having evil wives), who though according to strictness of the law were to have been put away, as all strange wives were, Ezra 10:3, 19. But yet it would seem that there was a common apprehension and pretension among the Jews for the keeping of them, if they were wives already, as appears by that very instance in Ezra. Nor yet had Solomon's person become such an abomination to the Lord, as himself in the Proverbs speaks of God's love and grace reviving again towards him, as we shall see here also to be insinuated by and by. Yet, however, a grievous punishment and displeasure from God there was in it, to have left him thus foully to transgress in marrying them, and to cleave so in love unto them. And thus much as to the effect of these two passages, considered barely as they are doctrinal monitories.
But, withal, it must be acknowledged that these two sayings do, to a great degree, set out what had been, and was, his own individual case, and indeed are an abstract of it. For, to be sure, he had not altogether escaped, but was taken by her, as hath been shewed; so as if we understand them as doctrinal admonitions (as they are), yet thus much further must be granted, that they coming so home to himself, he could not have taken the matter hereof so much as into his thoughts, much less so deliberately into his pen, but, if not hardened, he must be affected with a deep sense of his own condition as a grievous sinner, in the uttering of them, as well as in the former words we have seen he was. It was a serious and solemn repentance therefore which did thrust these forth here, as well as it had done the former.
And that a true penitent should express and lamest his own unhappiness, and also accuse, condemn, and lament himself, under a comparative view and consideration, made and taken of God's dealings towards others (whether of such as have been kept innocent, or otherwise guilty of the same enormities), and so there-under to bewail himself the more, cannot be thought strange or uncouth unto any one that knoweth what the exercises of serious repentance are; nay, it is most proper to the nature thereof. My meaning is, that for such a soul to bewail himself in such a way as this: 'There are others that, having walked closely and circumspectly with God, whom God hath and will keep from such or such miscarriages which I have run into. And O, how happy are such! For "he that pleaseth God, and is good in his sight, shall escape them." But, alas! I have not been such, nor so good in his sight, as to have had this favour from him; but out of his just displeasure taken at other sins, I, wretched I, have been left by him to these, as a punishment of those former sins: the sinner is and shall be taken.' And even such an one lamenteth the more for this, that God should have been so justly displeased at him, as in such a manner to punish him, and that he should give occasion to it more than others had done.
It is certain that the church (or Jeremiah, or both), Lam. 3, in her repentings there recorded, doth, in some like sort or strain, mournfully warble forth her own condition. She had begun (as here), ver. 1, to speak in her own person, I, and so carries it on all along, as therein grammatically speaking of herself, unto ver. 25; but then he turns the manner of her speech, and falls to utter the rest in the third person, he, setting down by way of doctrinal maxims, what is the wont and guise of true penitent souls, as what others in her case used to do: 'He sits alone, and puts his mouth in the dust,' &c.; and yet still she means herself in all these, and vents her own condition under these, as well as in the former she had done; and thus doth Solomon here.
And he that considers what was even now said, how near all this came to Solomon's heart whilst he was writing this, may well grant that he here still continues to speak but his own experience, and but what he had full dearly learned, and upon repenting had laid to heart; and that indeed he but wraps up and forms his own particular reflections of God's dealings with him, and of his towards God, into these two wholesome pills for others to take, from his probatum est.
So as I may say of it, repentance wrought this experience (or experimental review or recognition), and experience brought forth these axioms, and all as now grown out of his own heart, and he venting his heart thereby.
But then let this further be added for confirmation of this, that his I find, in the preceding sentence, which leads on and gives aim to these words, doth evidently send down unto these following sayings a continued, though implied, application to himself; so as we may as well set a new I find, before these words also (though but as understood) as well as himself had done to the former; and then to be in effect as if he had said, 'And I find also, that he that pleaseth
God, and is good in his sight, escapes her, but I have not been so good nor so happy.'
In fine, upon all these accounts, methinks the pulse of Solomon's heart (for there runs a secret artery under the veins of these words) doth beat with a double motion therein.
The first of a deep bewailment, as to this effect: Alas! that ever I, who, at my very birth, was declared and owned by God to be his beloved, 2 Sam. 12:25, and unto whom God had, when I was as yet young and tender, appeared twice, 1 Kings 11:9, thereby to allure my heart unto him; at which times also God commanded and forewarned me concerning this very thing, that I should 'not go after other gods,' ver. 10, thereby in a special manner admonishing me above all things, to look to and beware of that, and of all whatever that should any way lead to or be occasioned by it; of which God also as expressedly foretold would be the certain event of marrying outlandish wives, 'They surely will turn away thy heart after other gods.' Deut. 7:3, 4, 'And yet that I, wretched I, in the future progress of my life, should first prove so vain a sinner, as (finding I had all the freedoms and pleasures of a king in my power and within my reach, without control to enjoy) thereupon to give up my heart to a loose and inordinate use of all sorts of the delights of the sons of men lawful, to the utmost excess therein,* and so should thereby, through lusts running out unto, and intermixing with all these, so far provoke
God, as in the end further to leave me to worser, and these more wild extravagant exotic affections, unto outlandish wives out of all the nations, &c. And that I thus, proceeding on through God's displeasure, from evil to worse, should be so enfettered and ensnared in their toils, as to be drawn by them to set up other gods, and the idolatrous worship of them, and build temples to them, &c. And oh, the displeasures of God against me this way shewn! that he should be so provoked as to give up my soul from one sin to another, until it came to these! This wounds my soul; especially the more when, withal, I compare mine own wretchedness herein with others of the sons of Israel that have continued good in the eyes of the Lord, and pleased him by a strict and holy walking; who have been and shall be kept from (yea, altogether escape) such gross sinnings as these, out of a special favour and respect which God hath unto them. O but I,