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Ecc_8:8 [There is] no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither [hath he] power in the day of death: and [there is] no discharge in [that] war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.
Ver. 8. There is no man that hath power, &c.] Death man is sure to meet with, whatsoever he miss of, but when he knows not neither. Of doomsday there are signs affirmative and negative, not so of death. Every one hath his own balsam within him, say some chemists, his own bane it is sure he hath. Ipsa suis augmentis vita ad detrimenta impellitur, {a} Every day we yield somewhat to death. Stat sua cuique dies, {b} Our last day stands, the rest run. Death is this only king, against whom there is no rising up {c} {Pro_30:31} The mortal scythe is master of the royal sceptre, and it mows down the lilies of the crown as well as the grass of the field, saith a reverend writer. {d} And again, death suddenly snatcheth away physicians, oft as it were in scorn and contempt of medicines when they are applying their preservatives or restoratives to others, as it is reported of Gaius Julius, a surgeon, who dressing a sore eye, as he drew the instrument over it, was struck with an instrument of death in the act and place where he did it. Besides diseases, many by mischances are taken, as a bird with a bolt while he gazeth at the bow.
There is no discharge in war.] Heb., No sending either of forces to withstand death, or of messages to make peace with him. The world and we must part, and whether we be unstitched by parcels, or torn asunder at once, the difference is not great. Happy is he that after due preparation is passed through the gates of death ere he be aware, saith one. Whether my death be a burnt-offering of martyrdom, or a peace offering of a natural death, I desire it may be a freewill offering, a sweet sacrifice to the Lord, saith another.
Neither shall wickedness deliver.] No; it is righteousness only that delivereth from death. The wicked may make "a covenant with death," {Isa_28:15} but God will disannul it. "Shall they escape by iniquity?" saith the Psalmist. What! have they no better mediums? No; "in thine anger cast down the people, O God." {Psa_56:7} Every man should die the same day that he is born; the wages of death should be paid him presently; but Christ begs their lives for a season, he is the "Saviour of all men," {1Ti_4:10} not of eternal preservation, but of temporal reservation, that his elect might lay hold on eternal life, and reprobates may have this for a bodkin at their hearts one day: I was in a fair possibility of being delivered.
{a} Greg., Moral.
{b} Virg. Aeneid.
{c} Nulli cedo.
{d} Mr Ley, his Monitor of Mortality.