for ever.”_ This is the interpretation of our actions, when we do not
make God our portion, but trust in the abundance of our riches; this is
our “_inward thought_,” the saying of our heart, Ye are my god. We do in
effect say, Thou art my confidence, my hope, and my joy, and will stand
by me when all things cease and fail, and wilt not suffer me to want, or
to be wrong, as long as thou lastest: these are the secret speeches of
our hearts. Christians! many may (orator like), declaim against the
vanity of the creature, and speak as basely of money as others do, and
say, We know it is but a little refined earth; but their hearts close
with it, they are loth to part with it for God’s sake, or upon God’s
declared will. As he that speaketh good words of God, is not said to
trust in God; so speaking bad words of worldly riches doth not exempt us
from trusting them. There is a difference between declaiming as an
orator, and acting like a Christian.—_Thomas Manton._
_Verse 11.—“Their inward thought.”_ If _good_ thoughts be thy _deep_
thoughts, if, as we say, the best at the bottom, thy thoughts are then
right, and thou art righteous; for as the deep thoughts of worldlings
are worldly thoughts, and the deep thoughts of wicked men are wicked
thoughts, so the deep thoughts of good men are good thoughts. ’Tis a
notable observation of the Holy Ghost’s concerning worldly men, that
“_their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever_,”
etc. Why? is there any thought that is not an _inward_ thought? No, but
the meaning is, though they have some floating thoughts of their
mortality, and the vanity and transitoriness of all worldly things,
swimming, as it were, on the top; yet they do not suffer such thoughts
_to sink into their hearts_, or to go to the bottom; but the thoughts
that lodge there are such as his, who is said by our Saviour to have
thought within himself, “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many
years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” Luke xii. 19. Note
the phrase, “he thought within himself.” There are other kinds of
thoughts that sometimes knock at the door of the worldling’s heart, nay,
sometimes look in at his windows, as Paul’s sermon began to press in
upon Felix his heart, and to set him a-trembling; but there are other
_thoughts within_, which if they cannot keep good thoughts quite out,
they will keep them off from making any due or deep impression upon the
heart. Now, these thoughts that nestle themselves as it were at the very
heart-roots, to keep others out from reaching thither, these _deep
thoughts_ are they which the Scriptures call the “_inward thoughts_,”
according to that of the Psalmist (Psalm lxiv. 6), “The inward thought
of every one of them, and the heart, is deep.”—_Faithful Teat in “Right
Thoughts the Righteous man’s Evidence,” 1666._
_Verse 11.—“They call their lands after their own names.”_ God makes
fools of them, for how few have you that go beyond the third generation?
How few houses have you that the child or the grandchild can say, “This
was my grandfather’s, and my great grandfather’s”? How few houses have
you that those that are now in them can say, “My ancestor dwelt here,
and these were his lands”? Go over a whole country, few can say so. Men
when they build, together with building in the earth, they build castles
in the air; they have conceits. Now I build for my child, and for my
child’s child. God crosses them. Either they have no posterity, or by a
thousand things that fall out in the world, it falls out otherwise. The
time is short, and the fashion of this world passeth away; that is, the
buildings pass away, the owning passeth away, all things here pass away;
and, therefore, buy as if you possessed not, buy, so as we neglect not
the best possession in heaven, and so possess these things, as being not
possessed and commanded of them.—_Richard Sibbes._
_Verse 11._—Mr. A. was a wealthy farmer in Massachusetts, about sixty
years of age, and it had been his ruling, and almost only passion in
life to acquire property. His neighbour B. owned a small farm, which
came too near the centre of A.’s extended domain, was quite a blot in
his prospect, and destroyed the regularity of his lands, and on the
whole it was really necessary, in his opinion, that he should add it to
his other property. B. became embarrassed, and was sued; judgments were
obtained, and executions issued. A. now thought he should obtain the
land, but one execution after another was arranged, and finally the debt
was paid off without selling the land. When A. heard of the payment of
the last execution, which put an end to his hopes of obtaining the land,
he exclaimed, “Well, B. is an old man, and cannot live long, and when he
dies I can buy the lot.” B. was fifty-eight, A. was sixty! Reader, do
you ever expect to die?—_K. Arvine’s Cyclopædia of Moral and Religious
Anecdotes._
_Verse 11._—I have purchased, saith one, such lands, and I have got so
good a title to them, that certainly they will remain mine and my heirs
for ever; never considering how all things here below are subject to
ebbings and flowings, to turns and vicissitudes every day.—_Joseph
Caryl._
_Verse 11._—The fleeting nature of all earthly possessions is well
illustrated in the life of William Beckford, and the unenduring
character of gorgeous fabrics in the ruin of his famous Babel, Fonthill
Abbey. Byron sang of Beckford’s palace in Spain, in language most
applicable to Fonthill:—
“There, too, thou Vathek! England’s wealthiest son—
Once formed thy Paradise, as not aware
When wanton wealth her mightiest deeds hath done,
Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun.
Here didst thou dwell; here schemes of pleasure plan,
Beneath yon mountain’s ever beauteous brow.
But now, as if a thing unblest by man,
Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou!
Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow,
To halls deserted, portals gaping wide;
Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how
Vain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied,
Swept into wrecks anon by Time’s ungentle tide!”
_C. H. S._
_Verses 11, 12.—“They call their_ GROUNDS _after their names. But the_
GROUNDLING, _in the midst of splendour, endureth not.”_ In verse 11, we
have אֲדָמוֹת, “_grounds_.” In verse 12, it is אָדָם, “_groundling_,”
with a designed iteration and play upon the word; for want of an
attention to which the passage has not been fully understood.—_John
Mason Good._
_Verse 12.—“Man being in honour abideth not.”_ The rabbins read it thus:
“Adam being in honour, _lodged not one night_.” The Hebrew word for
_abide_ signifies “to stay or lodge all night.” Adam, then, it seems,
did not take up one night’s lodging in Paradise.—_Thomas Watson’s Body
of Divinity._
_Verse 13.—“This their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve
their sayings.”_ Master Baxter speaks very well of this in his “Saints’
Everlasting Rest,” which is a very choice book. The gentry teach their
children to follow pleasure, and the commonalty their children to follow
profit, and young ones are ready to follow old ones. “_This their way is
their folly._” The very heathen condemn this, and yet Christians mind it
not. Crates the philosopher said, that if possibly he might, he would
willingly mount to the highest place of the city, and there cry aloud in
this manner, “What mean you, my masters, and whither run you headlong?
carking and caring all that ever you can, to gather goods and make
riches as you do, whiles in the meantime you make little or no reckoning
at all of your children, unto whom you are to leave all your riches? Do
not most care more for the wealth of their children’s outward man, than
for the health of their inward man?”—_J. Votier’s Survey of Effectual
Calling, 1652._
_Verse 13.—“This their way is their folly.”_ The folly of man seldom
appears more than in being very busy about nothing, in making a great
cry where there is little wool; like that empty fellow that showed
himself to Alexander—having spent much time, and taken much pains at it
beforehand—and boasted that he could throw a pea through a little hole,
expecting a great reward; but the king gave him only a bushel of peas,
for a recompense suitable to his diligent negligence, or his busy
idleness. Things that are vain and empty are unworthy of our care and
industry. The man that by hard labour and hazard of his life did climb
up to the top of the steeple to set an egg on end, was deservedly the
object of pity and laughter. We shall think him little better than mad
that should make as great a fire for the roasting of an egg as for the
roasting of an ox.—_George Swinnock._
_Verse 13.—“Their folly: yet their posterity approve.”_ Dr. Leifchild,
in his “_Remarkable Facts_,” records the following incident, of a person
of property, who had been accustomed regularly to attend his ministry,
but who had always manifested a covetous disposition: “I was sent for to
offer to him the consolation of religion as he lay upon his dying bed.
What was my surprise, after having conversed and prayed with him, to
find that he was unwilling to take my hand, muttering that he knew that
he had not done what was right in reference to the support and
furtherance of religion, but intended to amend in that respect. He then
requested me to say what I thought would become of him. How could I
reply, but by exhorting him to repent, and relinquishing all further
thoughts of a worldly nature, to betake himself to the sacrifice and
mediation of the Son of God for pardon, safety, and salvation in that
world which he was to all appearance soon about to enter? He gazed at me
with a look of disappointment. Upon a hint being given me to inquire
into his thoughts at that moment, I questioned him very pointedly, and
to my astonishment and horror, he reluctantly disclosed to me the fact
that, while thus seemingly about to breathe his last, his hands were
under the bed clothes grasping the keys of his cabinet and treasures,
lest they should be taken from him! Soon after, he departed this life,
and there was, alas! reason to fear that, together with his property, he
had transmitted somewhat of his fatal passion to those who survived him.
It was distressing to me to reflect that a hearer of mine should quit
this world with his fingers stiffened in death around the keys of his
treasures. How strong, how terrible, was the ruling passion in the death
of this man!”
_Verse 13.—“Selah.”_ See “Treasury of David,” Vol. I., pp. 23, 26, 27;
and Vol. II., pp. 224-227.
_Verse 14.—“Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on
them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and
their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling,”_ or as we
put in the margin, “_The grave being an habitation to every one of them,
shall consume their beauty._” Some may object, Is not this true of godly
men too? are not they thus handled by death and the grave? doth not
death feed on them? and doth not the grave consume their beauty? I
answer, Though it doth, yet it hath not to feed upon, nor consume them,
as it feeds upon and consumes wicked men. For the Psalmist speaks here
of death as it were triumphing over the wicked, whereas the godly
triumph over death. For, first, he saith, The wicked are _laid in the
grave like sheep_: they lived like _wolves_ or _lions_, but they are
laid in the grave like _sheep_. If it be asked, Why _like sheep_? I
answer, not for the innocency of their lives, but for their impotency in
death; as if it had been said, when once death took them in hand to lay
them in the grave, they could make no more resistance than a sheep can
against a lion or a wolf. And when death hath thus laid them in the
grave, then secondly, saith the Psalmist, “_Death shall feed on them_,”
as a lion doth upon a sheep, or any wild beast upon his prey, which is a
further degree of death’s triumph over the wicked. And, thirdly, “_Their
beauty shall consume in the grave_,” that is, all their bodily and
natural beauty (and this is all the beauty which they have) shall
consume in the grave, whereas the godly have a beauty (and they count it
their only beauty) which the grave cannot consume, and that is the
beauty of their graces, the beauty of holiness, the spiritual beauty of
the inner man, yea, and the spiritual beauty of their outward holy
actings shall not consume in the grave; for, “Blessed are the dead which
die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may
rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.” Rev. xiv.
13.—_Joseph Caryl._
_Verse 14.—“Death shall feed on them:”_ rather, “_Death shall be their
shepherd_.” (_Sept._) At the end of the foregoing Psalm, the Psalmist
had said in the name of his people, that “God is our God, for ever and
ever; he will lead us as a shepherd over death,” and here he takes up
the same pastoral figure, and contrasts with their case the case of the
proud and prosperous worldly men, who trust in their earthly riches and
power. _They_ will _not_ be led in safety, under the pastoral care of
God, _over death_. No; _death_ itself will be _their_ Shepherd, and the
grave will be their sheep-fold; where they will be laid together like
sheep in a pen. As Augustine says, “Death is the shepherd of the
infidel. Life (_i.e._, Christ) is the Shepherd of the faithful.” “_In
inferno sunt oves quibus pastor Mors est; in cælo sunt oves quibus
pastor Vita est._” And so Keble—
Even as a flock arrayed are they
For the dark grave; Death guides their way,
Death is their Shepherd now.
_Christopher Wordsworth._
_Verse 14.—“In the morning,”_ that is, saith Dathe, in the _time of
judgment_. He thinks there is here an allusion to the usual time of
holding courts of justice, which was in the morning. See Psalms lxxiii.
14, and ci. 8; and Jer. xxi. 12.—_Editorial note to Calvin_ _in loc._
_Verse 14.—“Their beauty shall consume in the grave.”_ And now if we do
but consider a little of the tombs and sepulchres of princes and
noblemen, whose glory and majesty we have seen when they lived here on
earth, and do behold the horrible forms and shapes which they now have,
shall we not cry out as men amazed, Is this that glory? Is this that
highness and excellency? Whither now are the degrees of their waiting
servants gone? Where are their ornaments and jewels? Where is their
pomp, their delicacy and niceness? All these things are vanished away
like the smoke, and there is now nothing left but dust, horror, and
stink. The soul being dissolved, there lieth upon the ground not a human
body, but a dead carcase without life, without sense, without strength,
and so fearful to look upon, that the sight thereof may hardly be
endured. To be sure, it is a little better (as touching the substance)
than the body of a horse, or a dog, which lieth dead in the fields, and
all that pass by stop their noses and make haste away, that they be not
annoyed with the sight and stink thereof. Such is man’s body now become;
yea, and though it were the body of a monarch, emperor, or a king. Where
is that majesty, that excellency, that authority which he had aforetime
when all men trembled to behold it, and might not come in presence
thereof without all reverence and obeisance? what are all those things
become? were they a dream or shadow? After those things the funeral is
prepared, the which is all that men can carry with them, of all their
riches and kingdom, and this also they should not have, if in their
lifetime they did not appoint it for their dignity and honour. For the
prophet David saith truly (verse 16), “_Be not thou afraid though one be
made rich, or, if the glory of his house be increased; for when he dieth
he shall carry nothing away with him, neither shall his pomp follow
him._”—_Thomas Tymme._
_Verse 14._—When we look to a charnel-house, and take a view of the
grave, what amazing and dismal scenes present themselves! How many great
and important images appear! Distracting horrors strike our imagination,
and hideous sounds of diseases, destruction, and death, with all their
woful and black train, terrify us. Ah! the melancholy confused heap of
the ruins of mankind, what a terrible carnage is made of the human race!
and what a solemn and awful theatre of mortality, covered with the
disordered remains of our fellow creatures, presents itself to our
minds! There lie the bones of a proud monarch, who fancied himself a
little god, mingled with the ashes of his poorest subjects! Death seized
him in the height of his vanity, he was just returning from a conquest,
and his haughty mind was swelled with his power and greatness, when one
of these fatal arrows pierced his heart, and at once finished all his
perishing thoughts and contrivances, then the dream of glory vanished,
and all his empire was confined to the grave. Look how pale that
victorious general appears, how dead, and cold, and lifeless these arms
that were once accustomed to war; see if you can discern any difference
betwixt his dust and that of the most despicable slave. Yonder, a
numerous army, once fierce and resolute, whose conquests were rapid as
lightning, and made all the nations to shake for fear of them, are now
so weak that they lie a prey, exposed to the meanest animals, the
loathsome worms, who crawl in triumph over them, and insult their
decayed ruins. There a body that was so much doted on, and solicitously
cared for, and the beauty and shape whereof were so foolishly admired,
now noisome and rotten, nothing but vermin are now fond of it, so
affecting a change hath death made upon it. Look, next to this, upon the
inglorious ashes of a rich, covetous wretch, whose soul was glued to
this world, and hugged itself in its treasures; with what mighty throes
and convulsions did death tear him from this earth? How did his hands
cling to his gold! with what vehement desires did he fasten on his
silver, all of them weak and fruitless! Look now if riches saved him in
that day, if you can perceive any of his useless treasures lying beside
him in the grave, or if the glory of his house have descended after him!
Yonder, an ambitious statesman, his rotten bones are scarce to be
discerned: how did he applaud his artful schemes! how securely did he
think them laid, and flattered himself with the hopes of an established
greatness! but death stepped in, blew them all up at once; this grave is
the whole result of his counsels. And lo, there, what horrid and
suffocating stink ascends from these many hellish sacrifices of lust and
impurity, who wasted their strength in debauch, and carried down with
them nothing but the shame of beastly pleasures to the grave. But there
is no end to the corpses, nor can we survey this terrible field of
death’s conquests.—_William Dunlop._
_Verse 15 (last clause).—“For he shall take me.”_ This short half-verse
is, as Böttcher remarks, the more weighty, from its very shortness. The
same expression occurs again, lxxiii. 24, “Thou shalt take me,” the
original of both being Gen. v. 24, where it is used of the translation
of Enoch, “He was not, for God _took_ him.”—_J. J. Stewart Perowne._
_Verse 17.—“For when he dieth, he shall carry nothing away.”_ The form
of money agrees well with the condition of it; it is stamped round,
because it is so apt to run away. Could we be rich so long as we live,
yet that were uncertain enough, for life itself is but a dream, a
shadow, but a dream of a shadow. (Augustine.) Rich men are but like
hailstones; they make a noise in the world, as the other rattle on the
tiles of a house; down they fall, lie still, and melt away. So that if
riches could stay by a man, yet he cannot stay by them. Spite of his
teeth, _he shall carry away nothing when he dies_. Life and goods are
both in a vessel, both cast away at once; yea, of the two, life hath the
more likelihood of continuance. Let it fly never so fast away, riches
have eagles’ wings, and will outfly it. There be thieves in the
highways, that will take our moneys and spare our lives. In our penal
laws, there be not so many ways to forfeit our lives as our goods. Rich
Job lived to see himself poor to a proverb. How many in this city
reputed rich, yet have broken for thousands! There are innumerable ways
to be poor; a fire, a thief, a false servant, suretyship, trusting of
bad customers, an unfaithful factor, a pirate, an unskilful pilot, hath
brought rich men to poverty. One gale of wind is able to make merchants
rich or beggars. Man’s life is like the banks of a river, his temporal
estate is the stream: time will moulder away the banks, but the stream
stays not for that, it glides away continually. Life is the tree, riches
are the fruit, or rather the leaves; the leaves will fall, the fruit is
plucked, and yet the tree stands. Some write of the pine tree, that if
the bark be pulled off, it lasts long; being on, it rots. If the
worldling’s bark were stripped off, he might perhaps live the longer,
there is great hope he would live the better.—_Thomas Adams._
_Verse 17.—“He shall carry nothing away.”_ It is with us in this world,
as it was in the Jewish fields and vineyards: _pluck and eat_ they might
what they would while they were there; but they might not pocket or put
up ought to carry with them. Deut. xxiii. 24.—_Thomas Gataker._
_Verse 17.—“He shall carry nothing away.”_ “He hath swallowed down
riches, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his
belly.” Job xx. 15.
_Verse 17.—“Descends.”_ Death takes the sinner by the throat, and “hauls
him down stairs to the grave.” The indulgence in any sinful propensity
has this downward, deathly tendency. Every lust, whether for riches or
honours, for gambling, wine, or women, leads the deluded, wretched
votary step by step to the chambers of death. There is no hope in the
dread prospect; trouble and anguish possess the spirit. Hast thou
escaped, O my soul, from the net of the infernal fowler? Never forget
that it is as a brand _snatched_ from the burning. Oh to grace how great
a debtor!—_George Offor’s note in “The Works of John Bunyan.”_
_Verse 17._—
You will carry none of your riches, fool, to the waters of Acheron.
You will be ferried over quite naked in the infernal boat.
_Propertius._
_Verse 18._—How foolish is it to account thyself a better man than
another, only because thy dunghill is a little bigger than his! These
things are not at all to be reckoned into the value and worth of a man:
they are all without thee, and concern thee no more than fine clothes do
the health or strength of the body. It is wealth indeed, that makes all
the noise and bustle in the world, and challengeth all the respect and
honour to itself; and the ignorant vulgar, whose eyes are dazzled with
pomp and bravery, pay it with a stupid and astonished reverence. Yet
know, that it is but thy silks and velvet, thy lands, or thy retinue and
servants, they venerate, not thee: and if thou thinkest otherwise, thou
art as justly ridiculous as that ass in the apologue that grew very
gravely proud, and took state, when the people fell prostrate before
him, adoring, not him, but the idol he carried.—_Ezekiel Hopkins._
_Verse 20.—“Like the beasts that perish.”_ My lords, it is no wonder at
all, if men that affect beastly pleasures, and dote upon perishing
honours, become “_like the beasts that perish_.” It is no miracle if he
that lives like a beast dies like a beast. Take a man that hath lived
like the fool in the gospel, and tell me, what hath this man done for
his immortal soul more than a beast doth for its perishing soul? Soul,
soul, cease from care, eat, drink, and take thine ease: this is the
constant ditty of most men in honour: they have studied clothes and
victuals, titles and offices, ways of gain and pleasure. Am I not yet at
highest? They have, it may be, studied the black art of flattery and
treachery; they understand the humour of the times, the compliances and
dependences of this and the other statesman, the projects of divers
princes abroad, and the main design here at home. Is this all? Why then,
be it known unto you, that the men of this strain have made no better
provision for their precious souls, than if they had the soul, the
vanishing soul of a beast within them; and certainly, if we were to
judge of the substance of men’s souls by their unworthy and sensual
conversation, we might easily fall into that heresy, that dangerous
dream of some who conceive that their souls are mortal.—_Francis
Cheynell, in a Sermon entitled, “The Man of Honour,” ... preached before
the Lords of Parliament, 1645._