Wesley Corpus

By this restriction he implies that the happiness which in vain is sought for in this lower world, is really to be found in heavenly places and things. Passeth - Men continue but for one, and that a short age, and then they leave all their possessions, and therefore they cannot be happy here, because happiness must needs be unchangeable and eternal; or else the certain knowledge of the approaching loss of all these things will rob a man of solid contentment in them. Abideth - Through all successive generations of men; and therefore man is more mutable than the very earth upon which he stands, and which, together with all the comforts which he enjoyed in it, he leaves behind to be possessed by others. The sun - The sun is in perpetual motion, rising, setting, and rising again, and so constantly repeating its course in all succeeding days, and years, and ages; and the like he observes concerning the winds and rivers, ver.6,7, and the design of these similitudes seem to be; to shew the vanity of all worldly things, and that man's mind can never be satisfied with them, because there is nothing in the world but a constant repetition of the same things, which is so irksome, that the consideration thereof hath made some persons weary of their lives; and there is no new thing under the sun, as is added in the foot of the account, ver.9, which seems to be given us as a key to understand the meaning of the foregoing passages. And this is certain from experience that the things of this world are so narrow, and the mind of man so vast, that there must be something new to satisfy the mind; and even delightful things by too frequent repetition, are so far from yielding satisfaction, that they grow tedious and troublesome. The wind - The wind also sometimes blows from one quarter of the world, and sometimes from another; successively returning to the same quarters in which it had formerly been. Is not full - So as to overflow the earth. Whereby also he intimates the emptiness of mens minds, notwithstanding all the abundance of creature comforts. Rivers come - Unto the earth in general, from whence they come or flow into the sea, and to which they return by the reflux of the sea.