King SOLOMON's Portraiture

of OLD AGE.

Ecclef. xii. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt fay, I have no pleasure in them. While the fun, or the light, or the moon, or the ftars be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain. In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders ceafe because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened.

And the doors fhall be fout in the fireets, when the found

of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low.

Alfo when they shall be afraid of that which is high,

and fears fhall be in the way, and the almond-tree hall flourish and the grafhopper fhall be a burthen, and defire fhall fail, because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.

Or ever the filver cord be loofed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the ciftern.

T

HE, Oracles of God are given forth

that the men of God may be made

wife unto falvation, (2 Tim. iii. 15.) and all those that through faith have themselves exercised therein; fhall, thro' grace, (the Spirit of God moving upon the waters,) obtain that moft defired end; but this main happiness, is

not the only, that may be acquired by fearching the fcripture; for there are many natural things, the knowledge whereof may be better gained in one line of them, than in whole volumes of confufed naturalifts: Wherefore he that in the true fear of God shall apply himself to them, may think not only to have eternal life, but by the way also to obtain the true knowledge of moft things that appertain to this. Seek firft the Kingdom of God, and all other things fhall be added unto thee, Mat. vi. 33. Solomon fought after nothing but wifdom, but fee what a gracious answer he received, I have given thee a wife and an understanding heart, I have also given that which thou haft not asked, both riches and honour, and I will lengthen thy days, 1 Kings iii. 5-15. Thus it pleaseth God to deal with those who are fincere, not only to give them their hearts defire, but to fuperadd fomewhat they were not aware of, that may be beneficial to them in their courfe of life. Looking after the duty of man, which is compleatly fet down in ver. 13. of this chapter, I find before I come there, an anatomical enumeration of the fad fymptoms of extreme old age, and such an one as I dare be bold to fay, is not elsewhere to be Found. When the wisdom of the omniscient God, through his fervant Solomon fhall defcribe it, why thould I fearch any further? Ænigmatical I confefs it, and exceeding difficult; wherefore I have the more diligently applied myself

to the interpretation of it. And so much the rather, because I find various fenfes put upon the words, and scarce any one hath, without interruption, carried the allegory clean through the whole fix verfes, as I judge it ought to be. And because a mistake in the parts of man, may cause a mistake in the literal interpretation, I (whose study it hath been to be more verfed in those than ufual interpreters) do take the liberty to endeavour explication, wherein, if befide my own fatisfaction and content, I shall add any thing to others knowledge, I fhall therein have a fecond reward.

- I am not ignorant of all, nor do I despise any of those several interpretations both literal and mystical, that several learned and good men have been exercising themselves in. There are that expound all this allegory, or at least some part of it, to a ftate of wickedness, to a state of poverty, to a state of spiritual desertion, to a famine of bread, or of the Word of God, to the several difperfions and captivities of the Jews, to the destruction of both the temples, and of Jerufalem, to the obftinacy of the Jews, to the unprofitablenefs of the Gentiles under their ministry, to the apoftafy of the latter times, to the end of the world, and to the day of judgment. I know God doth at fundry times, and in divers manners fpeak unto the world by his fervants, Heb. i. 1. And knowing this firft, that no prophecy of the fcripture is of

any private interpretation; I know this from thence, that no private interpreter whatsoever is to bind up others to the measure of his own understanding. Now as I am against no other, fo there is no other against me in this that I am about. All that can be faid concerning it, is, that it is low, and mean, and ordinary, however (confest by all) it is true, genuine, and proper. And this may be faid of it beyond all other whatsoever; that it is the basis and foundation of all the rest. And every one of them receive their clarity of truth, from the analogy they bear to this primary interpretation; that is, that these fix verses are a true and proper description, of the natural, infirm, and decrepit age of mankind. That which the Latins call ætas capularis; the age of him who is fhortly to be taken unto death, or into the coffin, or upon the bier, or into the grave; plainly the age of him, who is by courfe of nature just at his last, and must ere long neceffarily yield to inevitable diffolution. There is in that language also another word (which way foever we take its etymology) that will excellently fignify unto us the condition here delineated. And that is filicernium; for whether we take it, quafi filiceâ herniâ laborans; he that is, troubled with hard ruptures, as very old men for the most part are, or fili herbâ ufurus, he that will foon call into ufe fuch an herb as was! then accustomed to funeral entertainments, or

filentibus brevi cernendus, he that will quickly be free among the dead; or laftly, filices cernens; he that by his age and infirmity is continually put in mind of his tomb; or rather (that which seems to be most proper) he that is bowed down with age, so that he cannot but behold the ground whereon he now ftands, and under which he must ere long be laid. And this anfwereth exactly to the Greek word, παρὰ τὸ ἐις γῆν ὁρᾷν.

pw,

I shall not take upon me precisely to limit the bounds of this decrepit ftate, forafmuch as they are various, in refpect of the difpofitions of mens bodies, of their courfe of lives, and alfo of the places and ages in which they live. The lives of the Patriarchs before the flood were extended to almoft a thousand years, Gen. v. 27. and yet we read not of thofe fad fymptoms attending them, as attend us now at four score. About the time of the flood, God abbreviates the courfe of man's life, and feems precisely to fet it at one hundred and twenty years, Gen. Ixiii. I know very well moft men would have this text to be understood as a threatening only to the prefent inhabitants of the old world, that it fhould be so many years before the flood fwept them all away: But it feems to me (and not to me only *) rather to intend the cutting fhort of the life of man for the future. For it is clear by the context, that

B 3

Jofephus, lib. 1. c. 7.

the