Ecclesiastes 8:12

And his days be prolonged.] By the long sufferance of God, which is so great, that Jonah was displeased at it. {Jon 4:1-2} Averroes turned atheist upon it. But Micah admires it, {Mic 7:18} and Moses makes excellent use of it, when he prays, {Exo 34:6-9} "O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go along with us, for it is a stiff-necked people." As who should say, None but a god is able to endure this perverse people; my patience and meekness is far too short; and yet Moses, by God’s own testimony, was the meekest man upon earth. That the vilest of men may live a long while is evident; but for no goodwill that God bears them, but that, heaping up sin, they may heap up wrath, and by abuse of Divine patience, be fitted for the hottest fire in hell, {Rom 9:22} as stubble laid out drying, {Nah 1:10} or as grapes let hang in the sunshine, till ripe for the winepress of wrath. {Rev 19:15} Surely as one day of man’s life is to be preferred before the longest life of a stag or a raven; so one day spent religiously is far better than a hundred years spent wickedly. Non refert quanta sit vitae diuturnitas, sed qualis sit administratio, saith Vives. The business is not how long, but how well any man liveth. Jerome reads this verse thus, Quia peccator facit malura centies, et elongat ei Deus, ex hoc cognosco ego, &c.: Because a sinner doeth evil a hundred times, and God doth lengthen his days unto him, from hence I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, &c. And he sets this sense upon it - Inasmuch as God so long spares wretched sinners, waiting their return, he will surely be good to pious persons. Symmachus, Aquila, and Theodotion read it thus: Peccans enim malus mortuus est, longa aetate concessa ei, An evil man sinning is dead, a long age being granted to him: dead he is in sin, though his days be prolonged.

Yet surely I know that it shall be well,] q.d., This shall not stagger me, or shake mine assurance of the Divine providence; for I know well that "yet God is good to Israel, to the pure in heart." {Psa 73:1} And although they die young - as ωκυμοροι οι θεοφιλεις, those whom God loves he soon takes to himself - yet it may be said of them, as Ambrose saith of Abraham, Mortuus est in bona senectute, eo quod in bonitate propositi permansit, He died in a good old age, because he died in a good sound mind. Or as Jerome saith of a godly young man of his time, that in brevi vitae spacio tempora virtutum multa replevit, {a} he lived long in a little time; for some men live more in a month than others do in many years. They that die soon, but in God’s fear and favour, though as grapes they be gathered before they are ripe, and as lambs slain before they be grown, yet, besides the happiness of heaven, they have this benefit, they are freed from the violence of the winepress that others fall into, and escape many storms that others live to taste of. A good man, saith a late divine, {b} prolongs his days though he die young, because he is ripe before taken from the tree: he even falls into the hand of God that gathers him.

{a} Jer., Epist.

{b} Dr Preston.