An exposition of Solomons book called Ecclesiastes or the preacher. Seen and allowedAn exposition of Salomons booke called Ecclesiastes or the preacher. Seene and allowed

I considered in mine hart the state of the children of men, that God ⟨image 60⟩hath purged them: yet, to see to, they are in themselves as beasts. For the condition of the children of men, and the condition of beasts are even as one. As the one dyeth: so dyeth the other.

I considered in myne hart the state of the children of men, that God ⟨image 60⟩hath purged them: yet, to see to, they are in themselues as beastes. For the condition of the children of mē, and the cōdition of beastes are euen as one. As the one dyeth: so dyeth the other.

¹This place is somewhat obscure, not so much of it self, as through the default of the expositors, which greatly trouble themselves, while they suppose for the most part that Solomon speaketh in the presence of the ungodly: but this is but a cold invention and supposal, although a received. Me thinketh the sense is to be taken plainly. He maketh a manner of a Sermon or collation of mans ways and devises, that they are all but vain. At length he cometh to the trouble and vexation, that is in officers, how they which ought to be a rule & ensample to other, are also vain them selves. So of special propositions going before, he descendeth to general. What shall I say or speak of singular estates, of persons, when we be all as beasts? Is not this a miserable case among men? Wherein differ they from beasts, which have no remembrance or feeling of God? ⟨p. 59⟩But here riseth a question. Wherefore he compareth men with beasts, whereas before he taught us there was a religion and fear of God, and a life everlasting after this life. Which thing hath most troubled the expositors. The answer is short. The interpreters do not here mark the scope and drift of the book, neither do they remember (which thing yet Solomon doth often repeat) that he speaketh of the things under the Sun, which in the new Testament, and more commonly is said, in the world. For this book maketh a difference between a godly life, & the life that is led in the world, or under the sun. To have a cheerful hart, and to joy in the things that God giveth us, in the fear of god, is nothing of the world, but a gift of God from heaven, and above the sun. But to be vexed with the care of worldly things, is a beastly state and condition.