Ecclesiastes 5

Use 1. It shows us what should not be our chief end, not to get great estates, not to lay up treasures upon earth: this is the degeneracy of mankind since the Fall, their great design is to compass the earth, and grow rich, and this they make their Finis ultimus, their chief end…

2. Afflictions on the godly are fruits of covenant-mercy (2 Samuel 7:14). But afflictions on the wicked are effects of God's wrath (Ecclesiastes 5:17). He has much wrath with his sickness.

Quest. But what is it to have other gods besides the true God? I fear upon search we have more idolaters among us than we are aware of. Resp. To trust in any thing more than God, is to make it a God. 1. If we trust in our riches, then we make riches our God: we may take comfort,…

4 Rule. If you would not offend in your tongue, ponder your words well before you speak. (Ecclesiastes 5:1) Be not rash with your mouth. Some speak vainly, because inconsiderately; they do not weigh their words before they speak them.

A thief may be let into the house at a window: So vain thoughts are let in at the eye. So that as we are bid to keep our feet when we enter into the house of God (Ecclesiastes 5:1), so we had need make a covenant with our eyes when we are in the house of God (Job 31:1), that we…

2. You covet that which will not satisfy you. Ecclesiastes 5:10: He that loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver. Solomon had put all the creatures in an alembic, and distilled out the quintessence, and behold, all was vanity (Ecclesiastes 2:11).

Who shall call God to account? Who is higher than the Highest? (Ecclesiastes 5:8) What man or angel dare summon God to his bar?

But thirdly, he means it of discouragement and sorrow. As often we find in Scripture darkness to be taken: as Ecclesiastes 5:17. As on the contrary, light, because it is so pleasant a thing to behold, is put for comfort.

- 3. Again, we are here admonished to use the action of prayer with as great reverence as possible may be, and not to think of God in any earthly manner. - Well reasons Solomon (Ecclesiastes 5:2): Be not rash with your mouth to speak a word before God. - Why? He is in heaven, yo…

If a man be to come before an earthly prince, he will order himself in apparel, gesture and words, that he may do all things in seemliness and dutiful reverence: how much more are men to order themselves, when they are to appear before the living God? Ecclesiastes 5:1. Be not ra…

My friends, you may not say what you please in the presence of God. Consider, God is in heaven, you are on earth, therefore be not rash with your mouth, and let not your heart be hasty to utter any thing before God, let your words be few, and well weighed (Ecclesiastes 5:2). The…

Baptism indeed saves (1 Peter 3:21), but that is not the baptism of water, but the stipulation of a good conscience, by the resurrection of Christ. The outward baptism without the inward, is not the mark of God's child, but the mark of the fool that makes a vow, and afterward br…

O the happiness! the eternal happiness, that there is in being espoused to Christ, when the breath of all clay-idols and beloveds will be out, and Christ still fresh in the communicating of his fullness to his people! O what a sad heart will many have, who have forsaken this fou…

God resists the proud. When passion vents itself, the Word of God, like Hercules's club, beats down this angry fury (Ecclesiastes 5:9). Anger rests in the bosom of fools.

Remissions and intermissions in our duties, are the first steps and degrees by which a soul declines and wastes, as to his spiritual estate. Your pains and diligence in the fields, makes your beds sweet to you at night (Ecclesiastes 5:12). Rest is sweet to a laboring man, whethe…

And should not we, much more, be qualified by the same consideration? If you see the violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, remember what a provoking creature sinful man is, and then you will not marvel at the matter (Ecclesiastes 5:8). The consideration of th…

Secondly, That the Lord will most certainly be avenged upon you for these things, except you repent. O read and tremble at the word of God, Ecclesiastes 5:4. When you vowest a vow to God, defer not to pay it: for he has no pleasure in fools; pay that which you hast vowed. But be…

2. That they covet not too much to make their children rich, and for that purpose live meanly and basely themselves, indeed and deprive themselves of many necessaries. An egregious point of folly is this, which Solomon has much taxed (Ecclesiastes 5:12). 3. That all needful duti…

The word must be received with meekness, and by faith applied to our souls, as an instrument designed to our endless good. When we have a peculiar reverence for God, and a respect to God in all our approaches; Ecclesiastes 5:1. Look to your feet when you go to the house of God:…

Our Lord dissuades us from it here, and his authority should sway with us: he knew the nature of prayer better than we do; for he appointed it, and he was often in the practice and observance of it. So we are directed to the contrary (Ecclesiastes 5:2): Be not rash with your mou…

I shall instance in five. 1. An idle and foolish loquacity, when men take a liberty to prattle anything in God's hearing, and do not consider the weight and importance of prayer, and what a sin it is to be hasty to utter anything before God (Ecclesiastes 5:2). It is a great irre…

3. This impresses an awe and reverence, if we look upon the glory of God manifested in Heaven, that [reconstructed: Bright] and luminous place. This is urged by the Holy Ghost, (Ecclesiastes 5:2) You are upon earth, and God is in Heaven; therefore let your words be few. [reconst…

It is an indispensible Duty incumbent on Christians to be Fearers of God. Ecclesiastes 5:7. Fear you God.

Such are the Workings of Gods bowels to his Children; though he may give them a severe rebuke, yet he will not cut off the entail of Mercy. 9. God deals well with his Children in Affliction, because though their condition be sad, yet it is not so bad as others: the Lord puts a d…

In temporal things there is no kind of fullness, you have not one worldly comfort, but you desire more of it. Ahab was a king, yet still he wants something, Naboth's vineyard: A man is not satisfied with abundance, neither is his soul filled with increase of worldly things, yet…

1. Comfort, while the word teaches us to look off from men to God, from providence to the covenant, from things temporal to things eternal, from men to God: as Moses feared not the wrath of the King, when he saw him that is invisible (Hebrews 11:27). And (Ecclesiastes 5:8): If y…

Desires are the vigorous motions of the will, when they are eager, impatient, and immoderate, then they discover this evil inclination of soul. So (Ecclesiastes 5:10). He that loves silver, shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loves abundance, with increase. This is a…

Distraction in duty — it's a great and usual evil, and one cause of it is the curiosity of the senses; how often do we mingle sulfur with our incense, and come to worship God having our hearts to the ends of the earth? Men let loose their eyes, and then away goes their hearts, a…

2. To keep up a fresh remembrance of our duty. Oblivion and inconsideration is a kind of ignorance for the time; though we habitually know a thing, yet we do not actually know a thing, till we consider of it (Ecclesiastes 5:1). They consider not that they do evil.

Whereas otherwise, when we consider not, we are stupid and sottish; None considers in his heart, is there not a lie in my right hand? I have burnt part in the fire (Isaiah 44:19). They offer the sacrifice of fools, for they consider not that they have done evil: they do not weig…

A man may appeal from the sentence of men, but this is judgment, this is as certain as if he were executed presently. There is injustice and oppression many times in the courts of men, but there's a higher than the highest regards it, and there be higher than they (Ecclesiastes…

Within a while, it will not be a pin to choose whether we have enjoyed much or little of this world's good things; but much will lie upon this, whether we have obeyed God, and glorified God, and accepted of Christ. The use of gold and silver ceases in the world to come: these th…

Sad will the account be that men will have to make for speaking, as for working of iniquity. On all these considerations, let me beseech you to take heed as to your words, and, first, let your words be few; and that not only in your commerce and conversation with men, but in you…

Oh sinful sin! But yet again; 2 Superstition is man's folly, as to religion, and this is younger brother to idolatry, it is of the same (venter) womb with idolatry: Superstition is not worshipping a false God, but the true God falsely, in a way that God commands not; but it teac…

I might instance in other things also, by which the Angels bear testimony against sin; they are present at our worship, and observe us, which is a great obligation to reverence, and a witness against immodesty (1 Corinthians 11:10). They take account of our vows (Ecclesiastes 5:…

That covetousness and all its gets or saves is unprofitable: for I pray consider. 1. All is not gain that's gotten; I will tell you what a wise man saw and said (Ecclesiastes 5:13): there is a sore evil under the sun, namely, riches kept by the owners thereof to their hurt; here…

So (Psalm 102:1): I will pour out my meditation — that is, his prayer; meditation was the mint or anvil upon which our prayers should be made. And therefore divines refer it to the third Commandment as that which is a harbinger to all holy duties we do to God, stirring up the fa…

1. Those things which are not commensurate to the desires of the soul, can never make a man blessed; but transitory things are not commensurate to the desires of the soul; therefore they cannot render him blessed; nothing on earth can satisfy. Ecclesiastes 5:10: He that loves si…

Thus grace by a divine chemistry extracts heaven out of earth, and gives us not only the venison but the blessing. Grace satisfies; other riches cannot (Ecclesiastes 5:10). Riches can no more fill the heart than a triangle can fill a circle; but grace fills up every chink and hi…

3. They are vexing: It was a fruit of the curse (Genesis 3:18): Thorns and thistles shall the earth bring forth: The comforts of this life have more or less of the thorn in them: They are sweet-briar: Riches may well be called thorns, they pierce both head and heart, the one wit…

8. In duties there are these: 1. The end. 2. The delight in them. 3. The success. As to the first, the less of the creature and self, and the more of God in the end, so much the more denied and spiritual is the doer, when purely for God [⟨in non-Latin alphabet⟩] we do (1 Corinth…

We must know the Majesty and Holiness of God, that we may be deeply affected with reverence when we come before him; we must put up such Petitions as are exactly adequate and agreeable to Gods will. Ecclesiastes 5 verse 2. Be not rash with thy mouth, to utter any thing before Go…

But such Persons diligently endeavor in the use of these Ordinances, and attendance to them, to be found in the Exercise of these Graces. They have not only an Antecedent Design to be so, but a diligent actual Endeavor after it, not suffering their Minds by any thing to be diver…

Agur's prayer against riches for himself, no doubt was built upon his frequent observation of how it was with others (Proverbs 30:8-9): 'Lest I be full, and deny God.' It is said in Ecclesiastes 5:12 that the abundance of the rich will not allow him to sleep, and I wish that wer…

The Lusts of the eye, are riches; so called, because their greatest serviceableness is only to make a glittering, and dazzling show. Which since Solomon approves (Ecclesiastes 5:11), What good is there to the owners thereof, save the beholding them with their eyes. The Pride of…

It made Martha forget that one thing necessary, being encumbered with many things (Luke 10:4) — this breeds care which distracts the mind (so the word signifies, as dividing it), and so causes wandering thoughts nothing more, so that the mind is not itself. For this weakens it,…

Thirdly, the vanity and sinfulness of the mind appears in the godly, that though they entertain good thoughts, yet the mind is not, will not be long intent on them. Some things there are, which we are, and can be intent upon, and accordingly dwell long upon them, and therefore i…

Lastly let us take a view of riches, the ordinarily most adored idol of all the rest. The wise man says first in general, neither riches nor yet abundance of riches will satisfy the soul of man (Ecclesiastes 5:10). This he more particularly explains.