Chapter V
The exposition of verse 29, and that the multitude of sinning* is the centre of Solomon s discourse: Lo (or behold} this only have I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions,
1 dc. Shew
ing, in general, that this verse contains, 1. In the latter clause, a summary
repetition of what in the former verses; 2. In the u hole of it, a demonstra
tion of mails corruption, and wherein that demonstration lies.
The whole of my design upon these words is accomplished in two things.
I. An exposition of the words.
II. The third evidence aforementioned, which the word many, as it stands
in this verse, gives, that the multitude of sins had been in his eye in the
former verses also, unto which that epithet hath an aspect.
The first in this fifth chapter, the other in the sixth chapter.
First, The exposition.
I. These words are the grand and final issue and conclusion, as generally
all interpreters do acknowledge, discovering the source, spring, and well
head of all the corruption which is in us all, whether himself or others, he
had been discoursing of; which became him thus at last to add and set down
as the coronis of the whole. And he magnifies the finding of it above all
those other discoveries forementioned, and that upon a treble account. 1.
As that which had humbled him through comparing his corrupt estate with
that uprightness God had created us all in ; and, 2, which alone had satis
fied him, it arriving at the bottom ground upon which the follies of himself
* See 1 Cor. xvi. 13. Shew yourselves men, be strong, are synonymes.
458 AN UNREGENERATE MAN S GUILTINESS BEFORE GOD, [BOOK XI.
and all men do come to be sin and wickedness, even because God made man upright at the first, their sin in that regard lying in their having devi ated and swerved from that uprightness ; as also, 3, laying open the true
rise of all that variety and multitude of wickedness men run into, even by being fallen from that integrity, which whilst they retained, they sought and
enjoyed in that one thing, which was the true and their sole happiness, viz.
in God ; but having lost, and ceasing to do so, they go astray, and wander
in a thousand ways of error, and seek out new inventions to be happy by. And that Solomon was thus highly affected at the discovery of it, as rising up to a perfect demonstration thereof, his words shew : This only have I
found, that is, this alone as satisfactory to my mind ; and to see things in
their true causes and originals satisfies the mind of any wise and intelligent
inquirer, as he was. He had descried afore that this wickedness was infinite
for number, and universal for extent in all men, but that sight left him con founded rather than satisfied :
* This I find, that I find it not, and in that
strain he speaks of that ; but this was it he acquiesced and rested in, Be
hold, this only have I found, &c. And that this verse should be a demonstration, giving the reason of the
former, the current and series of his whole discourse, whereof this is the
close, doth further shew ; for having at the beginning, ver. 23, professed to search the reason and account (using on purpose a word that signifies both) in the process of it, he first declares what he had by experience found as
touching that account, that is, 1, the numerical account, ver. 25 ; and then,
2, in this 29th verse, at the end of all, he proclaims with a bekold the
rational account of what had gone before.
And in course of speech we know it is usual, when one hath made a bare
narrative of a matter, then to come in at the close with the bottom causes or
grounds of what he had related before. And so hath Solomon done here, and it is as if he had said, As touching what I have hitherto spoken of, either mine or of others sinfulness, I find this to be the source and rise of
all, and specially of the multitude of sins in me and them, That man was made upright, but they have sought out, &c. This, in general, that the whole verse contains a demonstration.
II. More particularly, this last clause of the verse, that is, these words,
* They sought out many inventions, may be considered two ways.
First, Singly and abstractly, from those immediate foregoing in the same
verse, and so they are the summary of the drift, yea, of the matter of what
Solomon had been discoursing of in all the verses afore, gathered up and
contracted in other words. To demonstrate which, the chief matter of the
former may be reduced to two heads : 1. Concerning persons ; 2. Concern
ing things.
1. The persons spoken of had been himself, women, men, and so the
universality of mankind.
2. The things were the folly, wickedness, &c., which he had descried
in himself, and observed in them. And now, the total about both per sons and things, he folds up in this final clause, They have sought out many inventions. 1. The they comprehendeth the persons (himself in
cluded, as I shall shew) ; 2. Their seeking out many inventions, that com
prehends the things which had been spoken of, and concerning those per
sons, under new words, but to the same effect.
As, 1, what afore he had termed folly, wickedness, &c., in the general, or
particularly had aimed at, in calling them nets, snares, &c., or whatever
actual evil in any kind he had insinuated to be in men, women, or himself, these he, by a new-found name (and a word invented on purpose suitable to
CHAP. V.] IN RESPECT OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 459
the thing), terms inventions, and a seeking out for them. And what are all actual sins, other than new-found inventions and turnings aside to wicked
ways, digressions from that sole, single, upright way unto blessedness, which God at first instituted, directed, commanded, made and estated mankind in, and under ?
2. What he had insinuated of the abounding plurality of them, either under the similitude and expression of snares, bands (as hath been shewn), or in his I find, I find not, that here he more plainly declares by inserting the word many. This, for the first consideration of these words, abstractly considered from the other immediately foregoing in the same verse.
Secondly, This clause is yet penned in such words, as if we take into them (as we must) those anteceding words, Man was made upright, but
they, &c., then they do as clearly contribute, together with the former, to the demonstration forementioned ; that is, do express the true and proper
principles and original causes, how or from whence it comes to pass, or unto what and whom it is to be attributed, that such an overflow of wicked ness hath invaded all, and each of mankind, unto the production of an infi
nity for number of wickednesses. And this multitude of them is made the more eminent thing or matter demonstrated thereby. And as to this
purpose,
1. The word they is not to be understood subjective only, but causally also
(it serves to both senses), and notes out not only that the persons of all man kind are the subjects of this corruption, but further pointeth to them, as the
causes thereof, as the opposition to God made, &c., shews. He lays it upon the they, that is, themselves, to be the authors of those inventions, and the
multitudes of them, even as the prophet elsewhere, Thy destruction is of
thyself. In like manner, 2. Also the word inventions, as likewise that phrase, that they seek out, are as aptly chosen forth by him, both to import the nature or quality of
actual sinnings, what they are, seekings out, &c., as also most significantly to denote, in part, the bottom-ground or cause of all actual sinnings, and of
their multitude.
Thirdly, And thus considered, the demonstration or reduction of man s
corruption into its right principles, is exactly set out both ways by Solomon
here, negatively and positively, that so it might be full.
: Eemovendo non-causam pro causa, by removing what guilty man, to excuse himself, is prone to cast all upon, and ascribe it unto, as the
1. Negatively
cause, even God himself, and God his making me such and such. No, says Solomon, it is the perfect contrary, God made man (even all men, the
they) upright. He thus first thrusts the imagination thereof away with both
hands. Then,
< But they, &c. And the
: resolveth it into the true cause,
2. Positively
explication of that consists of three particulars
(1.) That they having been thus originally made upright in Adam, but
fallen from that state of uprightness, were now degenerated ; for in saying
they were made upright ; that is, at first indeed such, he withal insinuates,
that alas, now they are not so ! as in that speech, Fuimns Troes, so we wi-re
once upright, made so, but now become otherwise. And in saying made, he points to God s first creation of man, shewing what we were then made. And that word referreth not to what we are when born, as by generation
since. He could not intend that making of us, when by generation each of
mankind comes personally to exist, as if that then we were made upright ;
for Solomon had learned otherwise of his father David, Behold, I was
shapen in iniquity, and in sin conceived, Ps. li. He here therefore sends us
460 AN UNREGENERATE MAN S GUILTINESS BEFOEE GOD, [BOOK XI.
to their creation in Adam, of whom we read, In the image of God created he him ; yea, and therefore he did designedly make choice of the word Adam ; for what is translated, God made man upright, in the original is, God made Adam upright ; and yet not Adam singly, but the woman also. For in the same Gen. i. 27, it immediately follows, male and female created he them, namely, in that image he had afore spoken of. And thus, as in him, all those who were to come by generation, were first by creation made up right ; so likewise in him they are degenerated, he being the first man that
represented all both in his creation and fall, 1 Cor. xv. And thus Solomon
lull well, we see, understood to be intended in the story of Adam s creation and fall, and had found it (as his word is here) in the first and third chap ters of Genesis. And unto this he points whilst he says, Behold, this I
found, which the apostle doth more clearly both understand and express
: Rom. v. 12, By one man sin entered into the world, in whom all have sin ned. Yea, accordingly, many interpreters* have understood by that clause that follows, But they sought out, &c., to be intended, in order, first of our first parents Adam and Eve, and their first sinning
: they began the round.
< Thy first father hath sinned, as Isa. xliii. 27, and withal thereby both our first parents became the fathers of these inventions (as the first inventors of arts are styled, Gen. iv. 20-22), as well as of us their chil dren. Yea, and a learned criticf is bold to translate from the original these
* They sought the inventions of the great or mighty, that is, of the angels, great in power and might, 2 Peter ii. 11. So running up the
words, thus,
original cause in Solomon s drift yet higher, even to intimate that influence the old serpent had in this matter, whose inventions they were, cast in by him, which they, our first parents J, so greedily ran after and pursued. This, for the first part, or the demonstration fetched from the originate originans t which I do intend no more at all to touch upon in this treatise.
(2.) Hereupon the whole they, the gang of all mankind, their posterity, being deprived of this uprightness through the forfeiture of these their first
parents, they, out of their depraved wills and affections, seek out for happi ness in all other things where they can get it, or imagine they may find it, even in anything but God, from whom they are
* estranged from the womb, Ps. Iviii. 3. And all this the word seek out doth aptly and fully hold forth ; and this is a second cause goes to make up the demonstration of this gene ral corruption.
(3.) They also set their corrupted understandings or wits a-work to find out inventions for the supply of these desires of their wills, &c. And this, that word invention notes out as fitly, even that part or hand which the un
derstanding hath in sinnings ; and is answerably translated by divers, ratio-
cinia, reasonings; by others, cogitationes, thoughts ; all denoting what in the
intellectual part of the mind is the cause of sinning. And this is the third
part of the demonstration here intended.
All which put together do make up as complete a demonstration as per haps will elsewhere be found in any Scripture about any subject whatever, in so few words.
I may illustrate this by the condition of a vicious young spendthrift, that had sprung from parents of high and noble spirits, raised and elevated an
swerably to a mighty great estate and dignity, which having been, by a for
feiture of his parents, or otherwise, made away and gone, he yet retaining
* See for this also the Chaldee Paraphrast. f Ludovicus de Dieu, Quoesierunt inventioncs magnatum.
t Quod quaesivisse dicuntur, eo docere voluit, illas iraudes Satanas avidd ab illis
arreptas fuisse. Carthwritus in locum.
CHAP. VI.] IN RESPECT OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 461
an inbred greatness of mind and height of spirit natural to his breeding and
ancestry. Concerning this man it may be said that the former fulness and
height, though accidentally, and his present beggarliness directly, meeting and joined with an elevation of spirit continuing in the foundation of it for
largeness of capacity and aspirings, the same, though now corrupted ; that
all these complex together, concur one way or other directly or accidentally, and are the causes how and whence it comes to pass, that he affects to live at an height of pleasure and gallantry ; whenas yet having lost wherewithal to do it, suitably to what he had before, he is thereupon put to his shifts, and lives by his wits, his arts, and inventions, and so proves a mere shark, seeks out and useth a thousand tricks to maintain his riot and voluptuous ness, at as high a rate as whatever he can rap or rend here and there, will any way possibly enable him to, so to keep up a livelihood (God-wot a poor one). Thus it is, in what Solomon here says of debauched man, fallen from his first uprighteousness.
And thus much may serve for an exposition of this verse, in some corres pondency to what hath been done that way upon the foregoing verses.