Exposition of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 7 · Verse 17
Vers. 17. Be not over-much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldst thou die before thy time? (Heb. not in thy time?)
Here's another branch of Solomon's advice to another sort of Men, whom he call's wicked, living in the vile affections and lusts of the corrupt spirit of nature; refusing the Redeemer's purchas'd and offered Deliverance out of that most palpably evil and shameful state of bondage, and death in trespasses and sins. These, under the self-polluting practices of their unbridled brutish lusts, carry folly and madness written in their foreheads, to be seen and read of all men, in and by the restor'd common light of Nature. They hate the righteous life of their own nature, with all reproofs and instructions, towards their recovery, into it. They abuse what light of Reason they have, rendring it a slave to those brutish powers of life (it ought to direct and rule over) so as to prog about and fetch in provisions for them. The consequent hereof, Solomon declares, to be a dying before (or, not in) their time; saying, Why shouldst thou die before thy time? In a literal sence, how oft do men hasten the death of their body, by …, riot and luxury? These are bloody-minded men, that shall not live out half their days; Psal. 55. 23. They wholly delight in the brutish lusts and pleasures of their degenerate nature, polluted in its own blood, (Ezek. 16. 6.) dead in trespasses and sins, Eph. 2. 1. Solomon advises men, not to be over-wicked, or stay over-long in the brutified, polluted state of fallen nature, out of which the first-covenant … of Christ, do break forth (by a being born of (and knowing) him, … the flesh) into the righteous fleshly-life of the Law; who also … to break forth, out of that fading righteous state (with the spiritual new-Covenant Children of Christ) when warn'd of, and call'd thereunto, become guilty of more criminal …, … and abominable Idolatries, then they that remain wholly in their polluted Nature. A being born but of the flesh, or will of …, in Christ, is vastly short of a being born of the spirit or will of God, in him; Joh. 3. 6. and 1. 13. That that's born of his flesh, is but flesh, holy flesh, righteous Nature; makes but a first-Covenant Saint, Spouse, and Child of Christ, which Paul wholly quitted as dung, for the knowledge of … after … Spirit, or in his Spiritual, Resurrection-life. This turn'd the Law-Saint, in holy …, into a Gospel-Saint, in God's holy new-creature Spirit of everlasting Righteousness; 2 Cor. 5. 16. Phil. 3. 6, - 10. So became he a fool, weak, despicable, as a crucified, dead Man, to them that were yet wise, strong, and honorable in Christ, by the knowledge of him, only, after the flesh (1 Cor. 4. 10.) or, in but the first-Covenant.
But, to the wicked, here. Christ has restor'd the first-Covenant Light of Rational Nature in every Man, that comes into the World. By this, he shews (or gives them a fair prospect into) this first mystical Canaan, or earthly Jerusalem-state; and so, a call into it, even into the righteous, cleans'd Life and State of their own Nature. Those that refuse deliverance out of their polluted, dead state of Nature, do, by this additional evil, to their Hereditary Disease and Pollution from Adam, pull the just charge of that original Sin, upon their own guilty heads, as delighting in it, and chusing it, in preference to any thing of the righteous life of Nature, Adam had, before his fall. They render themselves literal Sodom, incorrigibly and therefore unpardonably wicked, to whom belongs the vengeance of eternal fire, (Jude7.) as the meet recompence of such errour; Rom. 1. 26, 27. Will they reckon it too hard, eternal punishment should be brought upon them in Hell, for a little short brutish pleasure, upon Earth? In this also they greatly err, not considering, that their unchangeable enmity to God, deserv's his unchangeable Wrath upon them. Thus, Man dies before his time, chuses his state of death and pollution, when he might receive the fairly offer'd Righteous Life of his own Law-Spirit of Nature, again; after which, yet, he may die eternally, if he refuse, by the right death and sacrifice of that, to receive eternal Life, in God's Gospel-Spirit of Grace. But, as an enemy of all Righteousness, or Righteous Life, God's and Man's too, does he turn that but changeably dead state of Nature, he was born in, into a state of unchangeable, eternal death; a latter end worse then his beginning, worse then that changeable, curable, recoverable state of death, he was born in. Such brutified monsters will not admit any thing of the least … towards their Deliverance or Salvation; not any thing towards … rendring them clean sacrifices to God, in a restor'd first-Covenant Life, in order to receive his life, in the second. By this over-plus of wickedness, does man hasten his own eternal ruine. If he hate the Righteousness of man, that he has seen, much more does he hate the more excellent, spiritual, new-Creature, everlasting Righteousness of God; and much more yet, the infinite and eternal Righteousness of the very Divinity, that he has not seen (1 Joh. 4. 20.) As still more and more above, and contrary to the vile affections and lusts of his brutified self-polluting Nature. Eternal death is the undeniably just recompence of all that finally refuse to submit to the Lord's declared terms, for their receiving eternal life, whether they be found in corrupt or righteous Nature; whether Publicans and Harlots, common … of the Gentiles; or Righteous Scribes and Pharisees, professing first-Covenant Jews, or Christian Gentiles. So have we the sence, in which these two verses, 16th & 17th, are spoken to two sorts of Men, professors and profane; one perishing by being over-much righteous; the other, by being over-much wicked. The former will needs have his Righteousness and Wisdom, to be everlasting and unchangeable (above and beyond all that God has ever written or spoken of it) crying, Peace, peace, to himself and others therein, as entitled thereby, to eternal life and peace, in and with God. All this, in a perfect contrariety to all God's Declarations, Counsels and Warnings, about it. So, they love and delight in, what, Christ makes the hating, parting with, and death of, undispensably necessary to their being saved. Eternal death is the meet recompence of such errour, finally persisted in. As for the overmuch-wicked (ver. 17.) he sinks himself into a far worse condition, then left in by his first Parents. So come they both, to a latter end, worse than their beginning, eternal darkness and death. These two sorts of incorrigible sinners, mystical and literal Sodomites, bring upon themselves swift destruction, by denying the Lord that bought them, (2 Pet. 2. 1.) One denying or refusing to receive him, so much as in his first; the other, in his second or new-Covenant life. And, of the two, the mystical Sodomite will have the worst on't, for ever, under the wrath to come; Mat. 11. 24.