Section 1148
The Superior Happiness of the Righteous Dead, to that of Living Saints
Occasioned By The Death Of The Reverend Mark James Fall, Of Watford, In The County Of Hertford. Preached March 25, 1763
Wherefore I praised the dead, which art already dead, more than the living; which are yet alive—Ecclesiastes 4:2.
THE particle wherefore shows that these words have a connection with, and are an inference or conclusion from, those that go before, so I returned, etc. The meaning according to some, [5391] is, that the wise man, whose words these are, returned from his former thought and sentiment, expressed in the last verse of the preceding chapter, that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; that is, as he explains it in the following chapter, that he should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of his labor with moderation and cheerfulness; but this he now revoked and called in, having observed the violence and oppressions that were in the world, so that a man could not enjoy the fruit of his labors with pleasure; but since Solomon afterwards repeats this sentiment again, it does not appear to be his sense; but rather it is, that he had returned to his former subject, the abuse of civil power and authority, observed in chapter 3:16. I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there; and having made a short digression from thence, he here reassumed his former argument, and enlarged and improved upon it, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun all that occurred unto him, all that were within the compass of his knowledge, or that he had got any hint of by any kind of information, by tradition, or by reading the history and annals of former times, of his own or other nations; as of the oppressions of subjects by tyrannical princes; of the widow, fatherless and stranger by unjust judges; of the poor by the rich; and of servants by true masters; and perhaps he may have respect to the oppressions of the children of Israel in Egypt, and in the times of the judges; or he saw by the Holy Ghost, as a Jewish writer [5392] paraphrases it, and being now under divine inspiration, the might foresee by a spirit of prophecy, the oppressions that would be in after-times, of the Jews in the captivity of Babylon, and in the times of the Maccabees; and the persecutions of the churches of Christ in gospel-times, by Rome, pagan and papal; and all the injuries that have been or will be done to them by anti-Christ, by the man of sin and fort of perdition; the man of the eart h, who ere long will no more oppress: (Psalm 10:18) it is truly observed by the wise man, that all those oppressions were done under the su n; for there are none done above it, none in heaven, none beyond the grave; there the wicked cease from troubling, (Job 3:17) and there the weary be at rest: the wise man goes on with his observations, and beheld the tears of such as were oppressed; which poured forth from their eyes, and ran down their cheeks in great plenty, because of their oppressions; which were all they could do, since they had no helper. The word is in the singular number, the tear [5393] as if one continued stream flowed from their eyes like a torrent, or as if the source of nature was exhausted, and the fountain of tears dried up through excessive weeping, so that scarce another tear could drop, or that it was as much as could be, that another should fall: and they had no comforter; none to speak a comfortable word to them under their oppressions, to do any thing for them to alleviate their sorrow, or to help them out of their trouble: that is, they had no human comforter, that either could or durst relieve or release them; which is a very deplorable case, and was the care of the Messiah, as personated by David, (17:20) and of the Church, as described by Jeremiah: (Lamentations 1:9) the people of God indeed, under the oppressions of sin, Satan and the world, have God to be their comforter; he is the God of all comfort to them, who comforts them in all their tribulation: one of the names of Christ is the consolation of Israel, whom good old Simeon was waking for; the holy Spirit is another comforter, tent by the Father and Son; and it is the will of God that the ministers of the gospel should speak comfortably to the saints, by assuring them that their sins are pardoned, full satisfaction is made for them, and their warfare accomplished; otherwise they have no human comforters, at least at times; or they are such who are like Job’s comforters, miserable ones: and it is further observed, that on the side of the oppressors there was power; to crush them and keep them under, and hinder and deter others from helping and relieving them. Such wicked men David had observed in great power, and spreading themselves like a green bay tree; (Psalm 37:35) when on a sudden they came to nothing, having abused their power to the hurt of others, and in the issue to their own hurt: and it is here added, but they had no comforter; that is, not the oppressors, but the oppressed; which is repeated, to observe the aggravated affliction of the oppressed, and the cruelty of their oppressors; and not so much for the confirmation of the assertion, as to excite attention and to raise pity and commiseration in the breasts of others.
Now from all this the royal preacher deduces the inference or conclusion in the text, wherefore I praised the dead, etc., not that he composed panegyrics upon them, and raised encomiums upon their persons, characters, actions, virtues and merits; but he pronounced the dead happier than the living; he judged in his own mind, and concluded within himself, and declared it to others, as his real sentiment, that the state of the dead was preferable to the state of the living, and that the one was more eligible than the other; because the one was free from oppression, and the other under it: and this subject I have chosen to treat of, for the relief of your minds under this mournful providence which has brought us together, and which I shall attempt to do in the following method;
II. Observe the preferableness of the one to the other, that is, of the dead to the living.
III. Show more particularly in what the preferableness, or superiority of the one to the other lies.