Excerpt from A Commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes

I have been favoured with an opportunity of looking over the manuscript of Dr. Young's Commentary on Ecclesiastes. An early and long acquaintance with him, and the sterling qualities of his mind, would have prompted me to say, that nothing which he may venture to publish can be without value and interest to the church. But a perusal of this work gives me a higher estimate of his qualifications, than any previous partiality had presumed.

It is eminently judicious; and enlivened with originality of thought, vivacity of expression, and practical pungency, which must make it popular and useful; while it will be acknowledged as able and solid - a valuable contribution to sacred criticism.

A peculiar charm of the work is that unity, with which he gathers the many difficult passages of this book to one purpose - a point of convergence, where everything is luminous and intensely interesting. And whether the judgment of the reader is convinced or not, that he has found in this central theme a key for the solution of every difficulty, it is enriched by the interpretation; and satisfied also, that this remarkable book is a sheaf, to be tied up somewhere, and carried by one great principle worthy of Divine inspiration.

I could wish, that the modesty of the Author had not imposed on his ability and originality a form for this Commentary, so artificial - merely because it has been found successful by others upon other books of the Bible. The mould ought to have been made original as the exegesis. The most enigmatic portions of the Old Testament, and the most dogmatic portions of the New, can hardly be cast into the same forms of analysis, without an excess of ingenuity.

But this is only a matter of taste.

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