Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.
Ver. 18. Yea, I hated all my labour,] i.e., I was sorry to think that I had been so eager and earnest in getting a great estate, which now I must leave, and to whom I know not; sure I am to those that never took any pains for it. And herein we see the corruption of our nature discover itself, in that we are so wedded to the things of this world - especially if gotten by our own art and industry - that we think much to be divorced from them by death, and to leave them to others, when ourselves can enjoy them no longer. Henry Beaufort, that rich and wretched cardinal, bishop of Winchester, and chancellor of England, in the reign of Henry VI, when he perceived that he must die, and that there was no remedy, murmured at death, that his riches could not reprieve him till a further time. For he asked, ‘Why should I die, being so rich? If the whole realm would save my life, I am able either by policy to get it, or by riches to buy it. Fie, quoth he, will not death be hired? will money do nothing?' a
Latimer, in a sermon before King Edward VI, tells a story of a rich man, that when he lay upon his sick bed, there came one to him and told him that certainly, by all reason they can judge by, he was like to be a man for another world, a dead man. As soon as ever he hears but these words, saith Latimer; What! must I die? said he. Send for a physician; wounds, sides, heart, must I die? wounds, sides, heart, must I die? and thus he goes on, and there could be nothing got from him, but Wounds, sides, heart, must I die? Must I die and go from these? Here was all, here is the end of a man that made his portion to be in this world. If this man's heart had been ripped up after he was dead, there might have been found written in it, ‘The god of this present world.'
Mr Jeremy Burroughs relates in print b of another rich man, that had sometime lived near unto him, who, when he heard his sickness was deadly, sent for his bags of money, and hugged them in his arms, saying, Oh! must I leave you? Oh! must I leave you? And of another, who, when he lay upon his sick bed, called for his bags, and laid a bag of gold to his heart, and then bade them take it away, It will not do, it will not do.
Mr Rogers in his "Treatise of Love," tells of one that, being near death, clapped a twenty shillings piece of gold into his own mouth, saying, Some wiser than some, I will take this with me howsoever.
a Acts and Mon., fol. 925.
b Serm. on Psalms 17:14, April 3, 1643, before the Lord Mayor.