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A27999
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A paraphrase upon the books of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon with arguments to each chapter and annotations thereupon / by Symon Patrick.
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Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.
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1700
(1700)
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Wing B2643; ESTC R29894
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268,301
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432
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have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured and wherein I have shewed my self wise under the sun This is also vanity 19. Or if my Son succeed me in the possession of them there is no man can assure me whether he will wisely preserve and improve what I have gotten or foolishly squander all away in short whether he will prove a worthy or an unworthy Inheritor of my labours And yet such as he is he must have an absolute power over all that I leave to dispose of it as he pleaseth and sottishly perhaps to waste in a little time what I with prudent care and diligence have been heaping up all my life long This is a great addition to humane misery and renders even the Study of Wisdom very vain which cannot find a remedy for these evils 20. Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun 20. Which are so great that instead of pursuing my designs for this World I turned my thoughts the quite contrary way and like one perfectly tired I concluded it best to leave off all further cares about any thing here despairing to reap any satisfaction from all my labours particularly to attain any certainty what kind of mun he will be who shall inherit them 21. For there is a man whose labour is in wisdom and in knowledge and in equity yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it for his portion This also is vanity and a great evil 21. For what hath happened to others may to me who have observed a man no way defective either in wise contrivance or prudent management or upright dealing but as eminent for honesty as he was for diligence whose Estate fell to the share of an idle person nay of an ignorant silly unjust and ungrateful wretch who prodigally consumed upon his lusts that which cost him no pains not so much as a thought to acquire This likewise it cannot be denied is not only a dissatisfaction but a torment nay a great torment to the mind of man 22. For what hath man of all his labour and of the vexation of his heart wherein he hath laboured under the sun 22. Who may well say To what purpose is all this toil of my Body and these solicitous thoughts and anguish of my mind For all that a man can enjoy himself of the anxious labours wherein he spends his days amounts to little or nothing and what comfort hath he in thinking who shall enjoy the fruit of them hereafter 23. For all his days are sorrows and his travel grief yea his heart taketh not rest in the night This is also vanity 23. And yet such is our folly there is no end of our cares for we see many a man whose life is nothing but a mere drudgery who never is at leisure to enjoy any thing that he hath but still engaged in one troublesome employment or other to get more which he follows so eagerly as if it were his business to disquiet and vex himself and make his life uneasie to him being not content with his daily toils unless he rack his mind also with cares in the night which invites him to take some rest This is so void of all reason that nothing can be imagined more vain and foolish 24. ¶ There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour This also I saw that it was from the hand of God 24. Nor can any man reap the benefit of his labours but by studying first to free his mind from overmuch care and anxious thoughts and then instead of heaping up perpetually for his Heirs by allowing himself a moderate and decent use of all that he hath gotten by his honest labours cheerfully communicating them with his friends and neighbours and lastly in order to these by being truly and devoutly religious acknowledging God to be the Donor of all good things from whose bountiful hand proceeds even this power both to enjoy all a man hath with a quiet peaceable and well-pleased mind in the midst of all the troubles of this life and in conclusion to leave all with the like mind unto those that shall come after him 25. For who can eat or who else can hasten hereunto more than I 25. For the truth of which you may rely upon my experience who when I could have hoarded up as much as any other man chose rather freely to enjoy the fruit of my labours and was as forward to spend as ever I was to get but must acknowledge this to be the singular Grace of God to me who preserved me from that great folly of neglecting my self for the sake of I knew not whom 26. For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom and knowledge and joy but to the sinner he giveth travel to gather and to heap up that he may give to him that is good before God This also is vanity and vexation of spirit 26. For this is a Blessing which God reserves for him whom he loves whose sincere piety he rewards with Wisdom to judge when and with Knowledge to understand how he should enjoy and take the comfort of all he hath especially with inward joy satisfaction of heart and tranquillity of mind in this favour of God to him whereby the troublesome affairs of this life are tempered and seasoned But he delivers up him that regards not God to the most cruel Tormenters which are his own unsatiable desires and anxious cares with busie labours and incessant pains to encrease his Estate without end and to heap up vast Treasures which God disposes afterward to those who approve themselves to Him in a pious just and charitable life with contented minds Now what a vanity and vexation is this also to a Sinner to get Riches for those to whom he never designed them Nay it is a sad thought to a good man that if his Son be not vertuous the Estate he leaves is not likely to prosper with him See Annot. o ANNOTATIONS a V. 1. Thus Themistocles Lucullus and others as Melancthon observes being wearied in their attendance upon publick affairs by many unprofitable contentions nay by the ingratitude of the people delivered up themselves unto pleasures as better than their ill bestowed pains b V. 2. Laughter The censure he passes upon this makes it necessary to expound it of such dissolute and frantick mirth as I have mentioned in the Paraphrase c V. 3. gave my self The word in the Hebrew as the Margin of our Translation informs the Reader imports something of extension as in other places of Scripture Psal XXXVI 10. because when men indulge themselves very liberally in eating and drinking the Blood boils and rises the Veins swell and the Skin of the whole Body is distended Lay hold on The word signifies not simply to apprehend but to keep
Cant. 5. the Urine whose Stream he fansies resembles a silver Thred which is then broken when it distils by drops as it frequently doth in Old men But the best of the Hebrew Writers by this Cord understand the Spinal Marrow that is the Pith of the Back-bone others the Nerves others the outward Coats of the Nerves c. And there is little reason to doubt but the Marrow down the Back continued from the Brain as it were in a String or Cord unto the very bottom of it together with the Nerves arising from it and the Filaments Fibers and Tendons that proceed from them are the thing here intended Which Melancthon saw long ago the Nerves saith he and Ligaments are here meant which have literally the power of Cords both to unite and tie together and also draw But no Body that I know of hath explained this so well as our Dr. Smith in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who hath also solved that doubt why they are expressed in the Singular Number because though there be many of them yet they are the continuation of one and the same thing the Fibers being nothing else but the Nerves divided and dispersed and the Nerves nothing else but the Marrow in like manner separated as so many Arms and Branches of the same Tree they are all one in their Original the Brain they are all one in their continuation for a long space in the Spine all one in their use to convey the Animal Spirits and to be the Instruments of motion This Cord is called Silver because of its colour being not only white but also shinning bright and resplendent and that when it is taken out of the Body after Death I omit other Reasons It is loosned shrunk up or contracted or removed as others translate it when it is no longer full of Spirits and so the Body becomes void of sense and motion either in part or in whole The second step to a dissolution is by breaking the golden Bowl and as the former related to the Rivulets as one may say of sense and motion so this to the Fountain viz. the Head and all contained in it The Membranes for instance especially that which the Ancients from the great esteem and reverence they had for it call Pia Mater Which is that part which deeply insinuating it self into all the anfractuous passages of the Brain as Doctor Smith speaks and being firmly annexed thereunto keeps every part thereof in its proper place and due texture so that whatsoever is performed within the whole compass of the Brain whether the making Animal Spirits their exercise therein or their distribution therefrom is principally done by the help of this Membrane Which therefore may well be called gullath that part of the Head which is the Spring of all the motion that comes from thence And so we translate the Plural of this Word XV. Josh 19. and both Forsterus and Avenarius understand the Singular here And it is called golden Bowl like that IV. Zachar. 2 3. from whence the Oil was conveyed by Pipes unto the Lamps for such Reasons as gave the other the name of silver Cord. For instance in respect of the colour not only because that most precious and deep-coloured Liquor of life is abundantly contained in the Vessels of this Membrance but chiefly because the Membrane it self is somewhat of a yellowish colour and tends more towards that of Gold than any other part whatsoever doth But especially in respect of its excellency and universal use for it being the instrument that doth depurate the best of Blood clarifies and exalts the Vital Spirits and so prepares them for animality as they speak to what should it be likened but to that most perfect best-concocted and most exalted Mineral of Gold Now the breaking of this Bowl is its losing its use not being able to retain its Liquors as a Bowl is useless when it is broken or as Dr. Smith explains it in the extremity of extreme Old Age it can no longer continue its continuity but by reason either of its natural dryness shriveling into it self or of preternatural moisture imbibing excrementitious humours till it be over-full it oft-times snaps asunder and so recurrs i. e. runs back as the Hebrew Word signifies into it self from whence the Brain must necessarily subside and all the Part serving unto Animal motion be suddenly and irrecoverably dasht in pieces So Avenarius judiciously translates this Passage That yellow Membrane which contains the Brain be trodden down The third step is the breaking of the Pitcher at the Fountain Which is variously interpreted some understanding hereby the inability of the Bladder to retain the Urine others by Fountain understand the Liver and by the Pitcher the Bladder of Gall or the Veins which is the most common Opinion But Dr. Smith rather takes it for the heart which is indeed the Fountain of Life and hath two distinct Cavities the right and the left out of which proceed those Veins and those Arteries which carry the Blood through the whole Body and bring it back again to the heart in a perpetual Circulation And if by Pitcher we understand the Veins which are the receptacle of the Blood and the Hebrew Word signifies any containing Vessel particularly the Widows Barrel in which was her Meal 1 King XVII 14 16. as well as a Barrel of Water in the next Chapter XVIII 33. then by the Fountain must be peculiarly understood the right Ventricle of the heart which is the Original from whence the Veins have their rise For so the Hebrew Word signifies not only a Fountain but a Spring from which Waters bubble up and burst forth as we translate it XXXV Isai 7. XLIX 10. in a running Stream and therefore is so to be translated here the Spring or Original viz. of the Veins which proceed from thence Which induced Commentators to take the Fountain here for the Liver which they would not have done had they understood as we do now that the Veins do not arise from thence as their first Original but from the right Ventricle of the Heart And they are spoken of in the Singular Number as the Nerves were before because they are all of one and the same nature original and use Now the breaking of this Pitcher into shivers as the Hebrew Word signifies is the utter failing of the Veins their ceasing quite from their natural action and use When they can no longer carry back nor conveniently convey unto the heart that Liquor which they properly contain but the little Blood which remains in the cold Body of man near his end is congealed and stagnates in his Veins And so I proceed to the last thing the Wheel broken at the Cistern Where by the Wheel some understand the Lungs which by their continual motion do thrust out the Breath from them and draw it in again to them resembling the Wheel of a Well now drawing up the Bucket to it self anon letting it down again