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Ecc_7:10 Say not thou, What is [the cause] that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.
Ver. 10. Say not thou, What is the cause? &c.] This, saith an interpreter, {a} is the continual complaint of the wicked moody and the wicked needy. The moody Papists would murder all the godly, for they be Canaanites and Hagarens. The needy profane would murder all the rich, for they are lions in the grate. Thus he. It is the manner and humour of too many, saith another, {b} who would be thought wise to condemn the times in an impatient discontentment against them, especially if themselves do not thrive, or be not favoured in the times as they desire and as they think they should be. And these malcontents are commonly great questionists. What is the cause? say they, &c. It might be answered, In promptu causa est, - Themselves are the cause, for the times are therefore the worse, because they are no better. Hard hearts make hard times. But the Preacher answers better: "Thou dost not wisely inquire concerning this"; q.d., The objection is idle, and once to have recited it, is enough to have confuted it. Oh "if we had been in the days of our forefathers," said those hypocrites in Mat_23:30, great business would have been done. Ay, no doubt of it, saith our Saviour, whereas you "fill up the measure of your fathers’ sins," and are every whit as good at "resisting of the Holy Ghost" as they were. {Act_7:51} Or if there were any good heretofore more than is now, it may be said of these wise fools, as it was anciently of Demosthenes, that he was excellent at praising the worthy acts of ancestors - not so at imitating of them. {c} In all ages of the world there were complaints of the times, and not altogether without cause. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, complained; so did Noah, Lot, Moses, and the prophets; Christ, the archprophet, and all his apostles; the primitive fathers and professors of the truth. The common cry ever was, O terapora! O mores! Num Ecclesias suas dereliquit Dominus? said Basil, - Hath the Lord utterly left his Church? Is it now the last hour? Father Latimer saw so much wickedness in his days, that he thought it could not be but that Christ must come to judgment immediately, like as Elmerius, a monk of Malmesbury, from the same ground gathered the certainty of Antichrist’s present reign. What pitiful complaints made Bernard, Bradwardine, Everard, Archbishop of Canterbury (who wrote a volume called Obiurgatorium temporis, the rebuke of the time), Petrarch, Mantuan, Savanarola, &c.! In the time of Pope Clement V, Frederick king of Sicily was so far offended at the ill government of the church, that he called into question the truth of the Christian religion, till he was better resolved and settled in the point by Arnoldus de Villanova, who showed him that it was long since foretold of these last and loosest times, that iniquity should abound - that men should be proud, lewd, heady, highminded, &c. {d} {1Ti_4:1 2Ti_3:1-4} Lay aside, therefore, these frivolous inquiries and discontented cryings out against the times, which, in some sense reflect upon God, the Author of times - for "can there be evil in an age, and he hath not done it?" - and blessing God for our gospel privileges, which indeed should drown all our discontents, let every one mend one, and then let the world run its circuits - take its course. Vadat mundus quo vult: nam vult vadere quo vult, saith Luther bluntly, - Let the world go which way it will: for it will go which way it will. "The thing that hath been, is that which shall be," &c. {Ecc_1:9-10} Tu sic debes vivere, ut semper praesentes dies meliores tibi sint quam praeteriti, saith a father, {e} - Thou shouldst so live that thy last days may be thy best days, and the time present better to thee than the past was to those that then lived.
{a} Granger.
{b} Dr Jermin.
{c} åðáéíåóáé ìåí éêáíùôáôïò çí ìéìçóáóèáé äå ïõ . - Plutarch.
{d} Rev., De Vit. Pont.
{e} Jerome.