Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings (part 2 of 2)

Verse 18.—“Man of the earth,” etc. In the eighth Psalm (which is a circular Psalm ending as it did begin, “O Lord our God, how excellent is thy name in all the world!” That whithersoever we turn our eyes, upwards or downwards, we may see ourselves beset with his glory round about), how doth the prophet base and discountenance the nature and whole race of man; as may appear by his disdainful and derogatory interrogation, “What is man that thou art mindful of him; and the Son of Man, that thou regardest him?” In the ninth Psalm, “Rise, Lord; let not man have the upper hand; let the nations be judged in thy sight. Put them in fear, O Lord, that the heathen may know themselves to be but men.” Further, in the tenth Psalm, “Thou judgest the fatherless and the poor, that the man of the earth do no more violence.”

The Psalms, as they go in order, so, methinks they grow in strength, and each hath a weightier force to throw down our presumption. 1. We are “men,” and the “sons of men,” to show our descent and propagation. 2. “Men in our own knowledge,” to show that conscience and experience of infirmity doth convict us. 3. “Men of the earth,” to show our original matter whereof we are framed. In the twenty-second Psalm, he addeth more disgrace; for either in his own name, regarding the misery and contempt wherein he was held, or in the person of Christ, whose figure he was, as if it were a robbery for him to take upon him the nature of man, he falleth to a lower style, at ego sum vermis et non vir; but I am a worm, and no man. For as corruption is the father of all flesh, so are the worms his brethren and sisters, according to the old verse—

“First man, next worms, then stench and loathsomeness, Thus man to no man alters by changes.”

Abraham, the father of the faithful (Genesis xviii.), sifteth himself into the coarsest man that can be, and resolveth his nature into the elements whereof it first rose. “Behold I have begun to speak to my Lord, being dust and ashes.” And if any of the children of Abraham, who succeed him in the faith, or any of the children of Adam, who succeed him in the flesh, thinketh otherwise, let him know that there is a threefold cord twisted by the finger of God, that shall tie him to his first original, though he contend till his heart break. “O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord” (Jer. xxii.); that is, earth by creation, earth by continuance, earth by resolution. Thou camest earth, thou remainest earth, and to earth thou must return.—John King.

Verse 18.—“The man of the earth.” Man dwelling in the earth, and made of earth.—Thomas Wilcocks.