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

If the iron be so blunt, that one can not sharpen it, he must then put to more strength: but the excellency to direct a thing is wisdom.

If the yron be so blunt, that one can not sharpen it, he must then put to more strength: but the excellencie to directe a thing is wisdome.

Again he comforteth them that are in office:¹ Even as an iron tool cankered with rust is hardly made clean and sharpened, so is the world like a rusty iron, and hatchet full of gaps, loose in the handle or helve, which no man can work well with. This is a very handsome similitude. And as it is a very laborious thing, and troublesome to cut or hew with such a rusty and hackled hatchet: so is it a woeful and miserable state to be a governor in a realm or an house. For it is an unprofitable & marred tool, ⟨image 167⟩and yet must we be doing, in, and about the same. So when men are evil and full of naughty affections, there is need of great wisdom to rule & moderate them. Thus he saith: If it be rustyed & blunt, then is there need of a wise workman, that is: It must be a cunning workman that can well whet out an old rusty Axe. So it is needful he be a wise man that can handsomely use such evil tools, that is the world, and such perverse and untoward men. Men by nature are despiteful. But God hath authorized such men, that at least they might therefore be obeyed.² For he saith: I will that thou be obedient unto this man, for if thou disobeyest him, thou contemnest me. But yet they obey not by this neither. Therefore public governance or house keeping is but such a rusty tool as is spoken of. Use therefore the same hatchet thou hast, sins thou canst handle none other, as saith the Proverb. He that hath no lime, must build his wall with dung or loam. If thou be an householder, or an officer, think thou hast this rusty iron, that is, such as thou canst not rule, nor will be ruled, occupy it, and cut with it as ye