Exposition of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 7 · Verse 28
Vers. 28. Which yet my Soul seeketh, but I find not: one Man, among a thousand, have I found; but, a Woman among all those, have I not found.
No unchangeably good thing, could he find in the first-creation. What then found he? One Man, among a thousand; but, no Woman, among them all. No true happiness, to Man or Angel, in the changeable, womanish, first-creation life of either. What's not there, can the wisest man never find. 'Tis folly to seek it, there. The self-evidencing vanity of all first-creation things, is such, that all and every one say, 'tis not in me, in us; no true life, wisdom or goodness, no manly, unchangeable new-creation Wisdom, Life, or Goodness, is to be found in or amongst us all; seek while you will; … 28. 12, --22. The first-creation life of Nature, in the first-covenant spirit, or Law-principle of action, God alway saw defective, as to the true blessedness of Man or Angel. He had beforehand, therefore, even from everlasting, set up (prepared, and kept in reserve, to bestow) a creature-life of everlasting Righteousness, in his new-Covenant Gospel-spirit, that's in unchangeable harmony with his infinite Divine Spirit. Heb. 8. 6, …. The Law makes nothing perfect; (Heb. 7. 19) no incorruptible Perfection or unchangeable good, is to be found in the natural, first-creation make, or Law-life of Angel or Man. The Law never had in it, nor therefore could give true Life or everlasting Righteousness to any; Gal. 3. 21. … Is it could; no need of Grace, Gospel, new-Covenant., new-Creation. Man's and Satan's Gospel says, there is … Life, in the first Covenant principle, the spirit of the Law; or natural, first-creation-state; ye shall not die at all. What need then of a second? Never look farther, for eternal Life. Adam's yielding to this Doctrin, slew all his posterity. Yet, abundance of his posterity, when restor'd to some measure of the life they had, and lost, in and with him, are at the very same point. Can't the universal sad experience of Mankind, as to the dreadful consequents of their first sin (nor all examples of like Apostacy, since; nor all the abundant, reiterated Warnings and multiplied Counsels of God, or Instructions, by the mouth of all his holy Prophets and Apostles, or Messengers, since the World began; yea, and by the Son himself) prevent men's running into the same error, sinning after the similitude of Adam's transgression? What then, can? How currant does renewed old first-creation life, pass, at this day, for new? and the words thereof, for Gospel? How mad were the righteous Jewish Teachers and Professors, with Christ, for disturbing their peace, and dashing their hopes, in Satan's Gospel-state? Whereas 'tis in God's new-creature life and wisdom, only, on the death and loss of all this, we can receive God's eternal good things, to have, hold, and enjoy, for ever. These are we to eye, and look at; 2 Cor. 4. 18. 1 Pet. 1. 3, 4. Not one Woman, could Solomon, a true spiritual Preacher, find, in the whole first-creation; not one Man, or Angel, in that changeable, womanish state, in whom was any such thing as eternal Life, or everlasting Righteousness; any unchangeable good thing. From his certain experience, and infallible sight hereof, he declares, it's never there to be had. But, he leaves not the point, so. On this Negative testimony, giving a dash on the whole first-creation state, he proceeds to the Affirmative, shewing where the one thing necessary, unchangeable Goodness, is to be found; in the second or new-creation Spirit and State, signified by the one Man, among a thousand. The manly Spirit of the second Adam, never sinn'd; nor can any, born of it, as living and walking therein; 1 Tim. 2. 14. 1 Joh. 3. 9. Gal. 5. 25. This one Man, the manly new-creation Spirit, Solomon found among the many thousands of blessed Angels and Saints, yea, in Christ the head, and all the members of his mystical body, the Church; Col. 1. 18. 1 Cor. 12. 13. Eph. 5. 23. Christ, and all his true thorow-followers, whithersoever he goes, and call's them, make up the one mystical Man, in unchangeable opposition to the Devil, and all his Babylonish Party of Angels and Men, fix'd in the first-creation, womanish state, the whole mystical-Whore of Babylon. Not one Man, nothing of the manly new-creation spirit, in all these; nor one Woman, to be found, nothing of the womanish spirit, in all the compleated new-creation body of Christ, the one mystical Man. All these come to be of the same mind and judgment, in every thing, as one Man. There's no Female in new-creation Life: no Male, in the first. Angel, Man, and Woman, are all but the mystical Woman, in the first; and, when fix'd there, unchangeably so; and so, an unchangeable Adulteress, against the man Christ, to whom she ought to have been married, in the second. In a peculiar, prerogative-sence, Christ himself is the one Man among a thousand, even thousands of thousands of his Spiritual Saints and Angels, as the fountain of that Life, they are all partakers of. He never fails to give it, in the distinct measures and seasons, appointed by his Father, to all, the Father has given him; Joh. 17. 2. All the things of the Man, here, are eternal: of the Woman, temporal. Eternal Life and Death are set before us, in these two Spirits, the manly second, and the womanish first-Creation Spirit. All that hate Christ, in the second, love and chuse their own eternal Death, in the first; Prov. 8. 36. Christ, the one Man, Solomon found among the thousands of his Saints (in a headship of pre-eminency over, and above them all) comprehensively signifies the whole number of elect Angels and Men, in whom his one Spirit lives; and they, in it. Here then have we the negative and affirmative Testimony of this Kingly Preacher, in this grand concern of Man; where eternal Life is to be found; and where, not.