Exposition of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 7 · Verse 15
Vers. 15. All things have I seen in the days of my Vanity: there is a just Man, that perisheth in his Righteousness; and, there is a wicked Man, that prolongeth his life in his wickedness.
Here's Solomon's large experience of all things in this first-creation World of Vanities. He has seen the end, all corruptible perfections and excellencies, therein, will come to; Psal. 119. 96. The just man, here, may be the moral Heathen, that depends on his own personal Righteousness, as also the first-covenant Jew or Christian, that depends on the perfect Righteousness or Comliness of that sort, imputed to, or put upon him; Ezek. 16. 14. Both these are bidding, with some confidence and hopefulness, at Salvation, in the natural, corruptible first-creation or first-covenant Principles of Light, Life, and Action; their own Wills, Understandings, and Wisdoms, under the Law of works, that requires such obedience as is performable in the active, working power of their enlightned Nature. These two sorts of just Men, in Heathen-morality or legal-Christianity, have nothing, brought afloat, in, or about them, but what's perishable; which, therefore, fix'd in, is unchangeable enmity to God. This enmity to God's Spirit, which, is the unpardonable filth of Man's, renders all such righteous opposers of the vile affections or filth of Flesh, in the corrupt spirit of Nature, guilty of the most criminal sort of uncleanness and wickedness. So, do all such just men perish, in (and by) their Righteousness, as abused, and set up, against the Gospel-Life and everlasting Righteousness of God, in his Spirit of Grace. The gross, profane wicked man, in the unbridled, unconscionable exercise of the corrupt spirit of Nature, contrary to both the said righteous Men, oft prolongs his life, in a prosperous, flourishing outward condition, in this World; Job 21. 7. And the literally-righteous, spiritually-wicked Man, typed hereby, may prolong his days, also, in this World. Both these fortunate fools, are, through the mistake of the natural man, in the spiritual Saint, envied, as …, in their differing ways more then heart can wish, while his nature is plagu'd and chasten'd, daily, under the Cross; Psal. 73. 2, — 14. But, when his spiritual man recovers and comes to work, he sinds himself, passing, according to the fixed methods of God's Wisdom, through a house of mourning and death, into eternal life; and the other, through their desired Prosperity and house of feasting, into … sorrow darkness and death; ver. 17, 20. He owns his natural man, to be foolish and ignorant, as a Beast, as to the making any right judgment, in this case; ver. 22. That brutish fool understands not this riddle of providence, in outward dispensations to friends, as …; and foes, as friends. He sees not this mystery, that when the wicked spring as the grass, and all the workers of Iniquity flourish; it is, that they shall be destroyed, for ever; Psal. 92. 6, 7. They are, in their various self-pleasing wicked ways, but treasuring up Wrath for themselves against the day of Wrath, and posting to eternal death, as happy as they both seem to themselves and others, to be. God's abused patience and longsuffring towards them, will be found, at winding up, a signal aggravation of their sin and punishment. Yet, mean while, God magnifies his mercy towards them, in giving them so large a time, to take notice of (and advantage by) his instructing warnings, for preventing the wrath to come. The mystical-wicked, first-covenant Brethren, fix'd in enmity to the …, do long live and prosper (generation after generation) in union of mind with the Devil, filling up the measure of their Fathers, in the highest and most criminal wickednesses. Wolves in Sheep's-clothing are they; Serpents, a generation of Vipers, that have drunk down the old Serpent's poyson of unchangeable enmity to God; and, … then, can they escape the damnation of Hell? Mat. 23. 31, - 33. They … and follow their first-… Fathers, in former generations, as persecuting Zelots against the second, and so pass along into the same everlasting darkness, after them, and never see light; Psal. 49. 13, 19. To prevent this dangerous fixure in the righteousness of Man, in the first covenant, against the Gospel-life and new-creature righteousness of God, in the second, Solomon advises all, capable of repentance or change of mind, as follows.