Ecclesiastes 7:25 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

To seek out wisdom, and the reason of things— To seek out wisdom and reason, and that I might know the wickedness of ignorance, and the foolishness of that which is in the greatest esteem, See chap. Ecclesiastes 2:2. That the advices above given might be the better received, our author declares that he speaks of nothing but what he has examined with all the care and application which human wisdom can suggest. "I resolved, says he, to be thoroughly wise; and though I was stopped far short of the end that I proposed, by the very nature of the inquiries in which I was engaged, yet I went as far as I possibly could: Ecclesiastes 7:23. The farther I advanced, the more I was convinced that wisdom was flying from me. Yet I did not leave off the pursuit of knowledge, and of whatever is the object of human reason. The wickedness or impiety which is the natural consequence of ignorance, the foolishness of every thing which men generally value the most, were also the subjects of my earnest inquiries;" Ecclesiastes 7:24-25. However, his discoveries, abstractedly from what is to be said hereafter of the excellency of wisdom, were confined to a few articles. First, bad women are excessively dangerous, and, on account of the many evils which are brought upon men by their means, may be ranked in the same class with death itself. Their arts and wiles are such, that it is scarcely possible for any one to escape out of their snares, except he is one of those who, by a constant pursuit of true virtue and holiness, have made themselves acceptable to God Almighty. Secondly, though some men may, through that means, be enabled to avoid being led into a wicked course of life; yet there is no one bad woman, but is mistress either of such bodily charms, or of such persuasive arts, as to be able to gain some men to her own ends. How they can, or why they have been by nature so framed as to be able to compass those ends, is a secret as yet undiscovered: but the fact itself is attested by daily experience, and Solomon had more of that experience than any man. Thirdly, Whatever devices men may have either sought out, or been led into, sometimes to their own destruction, God is no ways answerable for them, as he created them upright, and still offers them his grace. This is the only consideration which deserves to be insisted on; and it is such, that we must keep it constantly in view, whenever we are talking of men's mistakes or misdemeanours.