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Solomon, the wisest king of Israel, who reigned in Jerusalem, thus
commences the book called Ecclesiastes, which the Jews number among
their canonical Scriptures: "Vanity of vanities, said
Ecclesiastes, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a
man of all his labor which he hath taken under the sun?" And after
going on to enumerate, with this as his text, the calamities and
delusions of this life, and the shifting nature of the present time,
in which there is nothing substantial, nothing lasting, he bewails,
among the other vanities that are under the sun, this also, that
though wisdom excelleth folly as light excelleth darkness, and though
the eyes of the wise man are in his head, while the fool walketh in
darkness, yet one event happeneth to them all, that is to say, in
this life under the sun, unquestionably alluding to those evils which
we see befall good and bad men alike. He says, further, that the
good suffer the ills of life as if they were evil doers, and the bad
enjoy the good of life as if they were good. "There is a vanity which
is done upon the earth; that there be just men unto whom it happeneth
according to the work of the wicked: again, there be wicked men, to
whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous. I said,
that this also is vanity." This wisest man devoted this whole book to
a full exposure of this vanity, evidently with no other object than
that we might long for that life in which there is no vanity under the
sun, but verity under Him who made the sun. In this vanity, then,
was it not by the just and righteous judgment of God that man, made
like to vanity, was destined to pass away? But in these days of
vanity it makes an important difference whether he resists or yields to
the truth, and whether he is destitute of true piety or a partaker of
it, important not so far as regards the acquirement of the blessings or
the evasion of the calamities of this transitory and vain life, but in
connection with the future judgment which shall make over to good men
good things, and to bad men bad things, in permanent, inalienable
possession. In fine, this wise man concludes this book of his by
saying, "Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is every
man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every
despised person, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." What
truer, terser, more salutary enouncement could be made? "Fear
God, he says, and keep His commandments: for this is every man."
For whosoever has real existence, is this, is a keeper of God's
commandments; and he who is not this, is nothing. For so long as he
remains in the likeness of vanity, he is not renewed in the image of
the truth. "For God shall bring into judgment every work,", that
is, whatever man does in this life, "whether it be good or whether it
be evil, with every despised person,", that is, with every man who
here seems despicable, and is therefore not considered; for God sees
even him and does not despise him nor pass him over in His judgment.
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