A20544:154
A plain and familiar exposition of the ninth and tenth chapters of the Proverbs…A plaine and familiar exposition of the ninth and tenth chapters of the Prouerbs…
A plain and familiar exposition of the ninth and tenth chapters of the Proverbs of SolomonA plaine and familiar exposition of the ninth and tenth chapters of the Prouerbs of Salomon
London: printed by Thomas for Thomas Man, 1606
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
After the description of wisdom, whereby it may be rightly discerned is here proposed the profit and reward of it, whereby we are persuaded to embrace it: and that is.
After the discription of wisedome, whereby it may be rightly discerned is heere proposed the profit and reward of it, whereby we are perswaded to imbrace it: and that is.
First, in a particular, namely, long life: which is not so to be understood as though it were perpetual and so of absolute necessity: for then good men must grow to be old men, ⟨p. 26⟩and all which dye young, should dye wicked and damned: but that God hath the keeping of their lives in such good safety as they shall never be taken away before due season: they shall not die so soon as that it would be better for them to live longer: nor live so long as that it might be hurtful that they died not sooner. This point doth Eliphas truly expound to Job, and all other righteous persons Job. 5. 26. Thou shalt go to thy 1grave in a full age as a crop of corn cometh in due season into the barn. Now all grain is not of equal proportion of growth: some is sown before others, and yet is cut down after them: some is sown after others, and cometh to maturity before them: so that good husbands dispose not of their harvest by measure of time, but by the ripeness of their corn: and two extremities they providently avoid: neither too hasty to inn the fruits of their fields or trees, for so they would wither away: neither to defer the gathering of them after they be ripe, for so they would drop off, and shed, and grow to rottenness. Afterwards he declareth the recompense of wisdom in general: that the possession and practise thereof is not only a service to God, nor alone for his sake so often required: but redoundeth also to the profit of them that be owners and performers of it. And to this is opposed the contrary state of those perverse and wilful scorners, that howsoever their desire and purpose is to do mischief to others, yet all their malice returneth on their own heads.