ECCLESIASTES VII 20.

"For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not."

BEFORE proceeding to a direct consideration of this passage, we would request special attention to certain general observations which have a special application to this, and other passages of a similar character---passages found particularly in the Old Testament.

1. Whatever is affirmed of the attainments of Old Testament Saints, is not to be applied to Christians under the present dispensation, unless we have positive evidence that such application was specifically intended. We live under a "New Covenant, which is established upon better promises," than that under which those saints lived. What was impracticable to them may be quite possible to us.

2. When the Scriptures would express a fact which holds generally, but not universally true, they commonly employ universal terms to represent that fact. Take the following statement from the New Testament: "Then went out to him (John Baptist) Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan." We have positive evidence that these statements, in their strictly universal sense, are not true, and they were never intended to be so understood. In looking at particular passages of this character, special regard to this principle must be had, or we shall be utterly misled in the interpretation of Scripture.

3. Proverbial utterances, as Bishop Whateley has shown, though the language employed is universal in form, are never to be understood in a strictly universal, but only in a general sense. Proverbs are always to be distinguished from principles, or laws, to which there are no exceptions. Two proverbs, as the Bishop shows, may be strictly contradictory as far as their terms are concerned, and yet both, as proverbs, may be true. As for example, consider the two following: "Answer a fool according to his folly," and "Answer not a fool according to his folly." Not as laws of thought and action, but as proverbs or general facts, both of these maxims are true. Take, as an illustration of each of the last two propositions, the following admonition of the prophet: "Take ye heed every one of his neighbour and trust not in any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant and every neighbour will walk in slanders" Who supposes that this admonition, though expressed in the strongest and most universal terms, was intended to be understood as holding true of every saint under the Old, and of every Christian under the New, Dispensation? As a general maxim, or proverb, or statement of facts, that proposition is true, and was never intended to be understood in any other sense.

4. Poetic language very commonly follows the same principle. What is true in a general sense, the poet expresses in universal terms. Take, as an example, the following utterance: "There is none that doeth good, no not one." This passage, if taken in its strict, literal sense, would imply that there was not at that time, at least, a single righteous man on earth. The writer does not mean that, among the wicked, there is none righteous; that would imply the senseless tautology, viz., that among the wicked, none but wicked persons are to be found. The manifest object of the writer is to affirm, not that there are no righteous persons among men, but the general and desperate depravity of the race, of the Jews in particular.

Let us now apply these obviously valid and generally accepted principles to the passage under consideration, and to others of kindred import. On this passage we remark: 1. That the declaration, "There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not," if accepted in the widest sense, cannot be properly applied, but to individuals under that dispensation, and can have no such application to believers in Jesus, under the New Covenant The New is, as we have said, "established upon better promises" than the Old. What was not attainable under the former, may be among the common possibilities of faith under the latter Dispensation. 2. As a proverbial utterance it would be a violation of all the laws of correct interpretation, to give to these words a strictly universal sense, just as much so, and for the same reason, it would be to give a similar interpretation to the words of the prophet, "every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk in slanders." Neither of these utterances any more than the other was ever intended to be understood in a universal sense. 3. But the utterance under consideration is given, not only as a proverbial one, but as a prudential maxim, and as such is given in such a form as to evince absolutely that it was not, and could not have been, intended that it should have been understood in a strictly universal sense. The word "for," at the commencement of this verse, connects it with the preceding one, and makes the letter expressive of a reason for what is affirmed or implied in the former. The preceding verse reads thus: "Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men that are in the city." In this verse the necessity of continuous caution and vigilant and ever-wakeful circumspection is urged, as of supreme importance in our intercourse with mankind. The reason of this is then given in the verse before us, and that reason is this: men are not to be trusted. If we act upon the assumption that they are just and trustworthy, we shall make shipwreck of all our interests. As a prudential maxim this utterance is true, and worthy of our highest regard. When, on the other hand, we assume it as universally true, and as a theological dogma applicable not only to saints in ancient times but to believers in Jesus in all ages, we charge inspiration with the greatest conceivable absurdity. The reasoning of the sacred writer on that hypothesis reads thus: "Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men that are iii the city," for no saint under the Old, or believer in Jesus under the New, Dispensation ever was, or ever will be, free from all sin. He must have a great aptitude for the absurd who will impute to inspired wisdom such logic as that.