Let us hear the conclusion, &c.— Let us hear the conclusion of the whole discourse. Fear God, and keep his commandments, for that is the business of every man; Ecclesiastes 12:14. Because God shall bring all the works of men into judgment, with respect to every thing which was not taken notice of, whether good or evil. Now the sacred orator comes at last to the CONCLUSION which he had aimed at from the very beginning, viz. that every part of our conduct, whether it be praise or blame-worthy, shall be examined by the Almighty, who shall reward and punish even that which in the present dispensation of providence he seems to overlook. Whence it follows, that it is the interest of every man to fear God, and to obey his laws, that so he may be found guiltless when brought into judgment. See Desvoeux, and Peters on Job, p. 414.
With respect to this conclusion, it must be observed, that, the book being of a much older date than our artificial logic and dialectic, we have no reason to expect that Solomon should have strictly kept to the rules which they prescribe, and especially as his performance was a kind of mixed work, wherein philosophy was to appear in the dress of oratory. To say nothing, when you come to the conclusion of an argument, but what properly belongs to that conclusion, or has been before mentioned in the premises, and may be directly inferred from them, is a method accommodated to the rules observed by logicians, and certainly conducive to perspicuity; but it is more popular, and better suits the genius of rhetorical eloquence, to join the corollary or consequence drawn from the conclusion with the conclusion itself, so as to make but one compound proposition of both. If this be but remembered, one may easily see that we have put the right construction upon the conclusion of this book, though at first we may appear to have thrown part of it aside. Let the whole exhortation contained in the two last verses be compared with the book itself, whereof it is declared to exhibit the conclusion and design; and it will undoubtedly appear, that the meaning of it can be no other than this; namely, "The sole or principal motive to observe the laws of God is the steady belief of a future state; wherein God himself will judge mankind, and render unto every one according to his works:" and who can doubt but in that proposition the greatest stress is laid on the doctrine of a future state, as the only point which, in the nature of things, could have stood in need of proofs? The adviseableness of obeying God's commands is so obvious, when once he is allowed to have both rewards and punishments in store for mankind, that it could never have required twelve Chapter s to make it out. Besides, is there not reason to suppose that the author of the book understood the nature and design of his own work better than any interpreter born in after-ages? But what motive could ever have induced him to mention the doctrine of a future state, and judgment to come, as that which he had from the beginning laboured to establish, as the conclusion of the whole discourse, had his thoughts all along been employed on those subjects which several interpreters suppose he had chiefly in view? And let nobody object that the end properly, or at least primarily, declared by Solomon to have been in his view, is the fear of God, and not the doctrine of a future state; for these are two points which he considers as if they were but one. Besides, a very good reason may be assigned why he spoke of the fear of God, though the certainty of a future judgment was what he had principally aimed at; viz. that that doctrine is a powerful incentive to fear God; whereas no plausible one can be given, why he should have said a single word of that certainty, had the fear of God been the subject of which he directly intended to treat. See the introductory note on this book, and Bishop Lowth's 24th Prelection.