John Trapp on Ecclesiastes 6:3

Verſ. 3. If a man beget an hundred children] As Ahab did half an hundred, after that God had threatned to cut off all his houſe, as it were in contempt of the divine threatning: And as Proculus Caeſar got twenty Maids with child in fifteen daies ſpace,Lib. 7. Eraſm. in Chiſia. Hier, epiſt. 7. as Pliny reporteth. Eraſmus mentioneth a Maid of Euboea, called Combe, that being married to an husband, brought him an hundred children. Like enough it might bee luctuoſa foecunditas, as Hierom ſaith of Laeta, who buried many children.

And live many years] So that hee bee triſaecliſenex, as Neſtor was of old, and Johannes de temporibus, a French-man, not many ages ſince: to whom I may add that old, Parre. old, very old man, that died of late years, having been born in Henry the ſevenths daies, or Edward the fourths.

And his ſoul bee not filled with good] Though hee bee filled with years, and filled with children, that may ſurvive and ſucceed him in his eſtate, yet if hee bee a covetous caytiff, a miſerable muckworm, that injoyes nothing (as in the former verſe) is not Maſter of his wealth, but is maſtered by it, lives beſide what hee hath, and dies to ſave charges. As hee in Camd. Remains.

And alſo that hee have no burial] Hee leaves nothing to bring him honeſtly home, as they ſay, or if hee do, yet his ungrateful greedy heirs deny him that laſt honour,Jer. 22.19. ſo that hee is buried with the burial of an Aſs, as Coniah; ſuffered to rot and ſtink above ground, as that Aſſyrian Monarch, Iſa, 14. 19, 20. and after him Alexander the Great, who lay unburied thirty daies together. So Pompey the Great, of whom Claudian the Poet ſings thus, Nudus paſcit aves, jacet en qui poſſidet orbem, Exiguae telluris inops. —

And the like is ſtoried of our William the Conquerour, and divers other greedy engroſſers of the worlds good. See here the poiſonful and pernicious nature of niggardiſe and covetouſneſs, that turns long life, and large iſſue, (thoſe ſweeteſt bleſſings of God) into bitter curſes: And withall take notice of the juſt hand of God upon covetous old men, that they ſhould want comely burial; which is uſually one of their greateſt cares, as Plutarch obſerveth. For giving the reaſon why old men, that are going out of the world, ſhould bee ſo earneſtly bent upon the world, hee ſaith, it is out of fear that they ſhall not have [non-Latin text not transcribed], friends to keep them whiles alive, and ſome to bury them when they are dead.

I ſay that an untimely birth] I affirm it in the word of truth, and upon mature deliberation, That an untimely birth (not onely a naked young childe, (as aforeſaid) that is carried ab utero, ad urnam, from the womb, to the tomb, from the birth, to the burial) but an abortive, that coming too ſoon into the world, comes not at all; and, by having no name, findes it ſelf a name, as Pliny ſpeaks of the herb Anonymus.