| Back to Home Page | Back to Book Index
|
Ecclesiastes
Chapter Two
Ecclesiastes 2
Chapter Contents
The vanity and vexation of mirth, sensual pleasure,
riches, and pomp. (1-11) Human wisdom insufficient. (12-17) This world to be
used according to the will of God. (18-26)
Commentary on Ecclesiastes 2:1-11
(Read Ecclesiastes 2:1-11)
Solomon soon found mirth and pleasure to be vanity. What
does noisy, flashy mirth towards making a man happy? The manifold devices of
men's hearts, to get satisfaction from the world, and their changing from one
thing to another, are like the restlessness of a man in a fever. Perceiving it
was folly to give himself to wine, he next tried the costly amusements of
princes. The poor, when they read such a description, are ready to feel
discontent. But the remedy against all such feelings is in the estimate of it all
by the owner himself. All was vanity and vexation of spirit: and the same
things would yield the same result to us, as to Solomon. Having food and
raiment, let us therewith be content. His wisdom remained with him; a strong
understanding, with great human knowledge. But every earthly pleasure, when
unconnected with better blessings, leaves the mind as eager and unsatisfied as
before. Happiness arises not from the situation in which we are placed. It is
only through Jesus Christ that final blessedness can be attained.
Commentary on Ecclesiastes 2:12-17
(Read Ecclesiastes 2:12-17)
Solomon found that knowledge and prudence were preferable
to ignorance and folly, though human wisdom and knowledge will not make a man
happy. The most learned of men, who dies a stranger to Christ Jesus, will
perish equally with the most ignorant; and what good can commendations on earth
do to the body in the grave, or the soul in hell? And the spirits of just men
made perfect cannot want them. So that if this were all, we might be led to
hate our life, as it is all vanity and vexation of spirit.
Commentary on Ecclesiastes 2:18-26
(Read Ecclesiastes 2:18-26)
Our hearts are very loth to quit their expectations of
great things from the creature; but Solomon came to this at length. The world
is a vale of tears, even to those that have much of it. See what fools they
are, who make themselves drudges to the world, which affords a man nothing
better than subsistence for the body. And the utmost he can attain in this
respect is to allow himself a sober, cheerful use thereof, according to his
rank and condition. But we must enjoy good in our labour; we must use those
things to make us diligent and cheerful in worldly business. And this is the
gift of God. Riches are a blessing or a curse to a man, according as he has, or
has not, a heart to make a good use of them. To those that are accepted of the
Lord, he gives joy and satisfaction in the knowledge and love of him. But to
the sinner he allots labour, sorrow, vanity, and vexation, in seeking a worldly
portion, which yet afterwards comes into better hands. Let the sinner seriously
consider his latter end. To seek a lasting portion in the love of Christ and
the blessings it bestows, is the only way to true and satisfying enjoyment even
of this present world.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Ecclesiastes》
Ecclesiastes 2
Verse 1
[1] I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with
mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also is vanity.
I said — Being disappointed of my hopes from knowledge, I
resolved to try another course.
Go to — O my soul! I will try whether I cannot make thee
happy, by the enjoyment of sensual delights.
Vanity — Is vain, and unable to make men happy.
Verse 2
[2] I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth
it?
It is mad — This is an act of madness, more
fit for fools who know nothing, than for wise men in this sinful, and
dangerous, and deplorable state of mankind.
What doth it — What good doth it? Or how can it
make men happy? I challenge all the Epicures in the world to give me a solid
answer.
Verse 3
[3] I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet
acquainting mine heart with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly, till I might see
what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven
all the days of their life.
To wine — To gratify myself with delicious meats and drinks.
Yet — Yet resolving to use my wisdom, that I might try
whether I could not arrive at satisfaction, by mixing wine and wisdom together.
To lay hold — To pursue sensual pleasures,
which was my folly.
'Till — 'Till I might find out the true way to contentment and
satisfaction, during this mortal life.
Verse 6
[6] I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood
that bringeth forth trees:
The wood — The nurseries of young trees, which for the multitude
of them were like a wood or forest.
Verse 8
[8] I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar
treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers,
and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all
sorts.
Peculiar treasure — The greatest jewels
and rarities of other kings, which they gave to me, either as a tribute, or by
way of present.
Of provinces — Which were imposed upon or
presented by all the provinces of my dominions.
Verse 9
[9] So I was great, and increased more than all that were
before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me.
Great — In riches, and power, and glory.
My wisdom remained — As yet I was not
wholly seduced from God.
Verse 10
[10] And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I
withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and
this was my portion of all my labour.
And — Whatsoever was grateful to my senses.
Rejoiced — I had the comfort of all my labours, and was not
hindered from the full enjoyment of them by sickness or war, or any other
calamity.
My portion — This present enjoyment of them,
was all the benefit which I could expect from all my labours. So that I made
the best of them.
Verse 11
[11] Then I looked on all the works that my hands had
wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was
vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.
Vexation — I found myself wholly dissatisfied.
No profit — The pleasure was past, and I was
never the better for it, but as empty as before.
Verse 12
[12] And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and
folly: for what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath
been already done.
I turned — Being frustrated of my hopes in pleasure, I returned
to a second consideration of my first choice, to see whether there was not more
satisfaction to be gotten from wisdom, than I discovered at my first view.
Done — As by others, so especially by myself. They can make
no new discoveries as to this point. They can make no more of the pleasures of
sense than I have done. Let me then try once more, whether wisdom can give
happiness.
Verse 13
[13] Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light
excelleth darkness.
I saw — I allowed thus much. Although wisdom is not sufficient
to make men happy, yet it is of a far greater use than vain pleasures, or any
other follies.
Verse 14
[14] The wise man's eyes are in his head; but the fool
walketh in darkness: and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to
them all.
Head — In their proper place. He hath the use of his eyes and
reason, and foresees, and so avoids many dangers and mischiefs.
Yet — Notwithstanding this excellency of wisdom above folly,
at last they both come to one end. Both are subject to the same calamities, and
to death itself, which takes away all difference between them.
Verse 15
[15] Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so
it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart,
that this also is vanity.
Why — What benefit have I by my wisdom?
Verse 16
[16] For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the
fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten.
And how dieth the wise man? as the fool.
For — Their memory, though it may flourish for a season, yet
will in a little time be worn out; as we see it, most of the wise men of former
ages, whose very names, together with all their monuments, are utterly lost.
As the fool — He must die as certainly as the
fool.
Verse 17
[17] Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought
under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Life — My life was a burden to me.
Is grievous — All human designs and works are
so far from yielding me satisfaction, that the consideration of them increases
my discontent.
Verse 18
[18] 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.
All my labour — All these riches and buildings,
and other fruits of my labour, were aggravations of my misery.
Because — Because I must, and that everlastingly, leave them all
behind me.
Verse 19
[19] And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a
fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and
wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity.
Or a fool — Who will undo all that I have
done, and turn the effects of my wisdom into instruments of his folly. Some
think he had such an opinion of Rehoboam.
Verse 20
[20] Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of
all the labour which I took under the sun.
Despair — I gave myself up to despair of ever reaping that
satisfaction which I promised to myself.
Verse 21
[21] For there is a man whose labour is in wisdom, and in
knowledge, and in equity; yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he
leave it for his portion. This also is vanity and a great evil.
Wisdom — Who uses great industry, and prudence, and justice
too, in the use and management of his affairs.
To a man — Who has spent his days in sloth and folly.
A great evil — A great disorder in itself, and a
great torment to a considering mind.
Verse 22
[22] For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation
of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun?
For what — What comfort or benefit remains to any man after this
short and frail life is once ended?
Verse 23
[23] For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea,
his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity.
Sorrows — Full of sorrows. Tho' he took great and unwearied
pains all his days, yet the toils of his body were accompanied with vexation of
mind.
His heart — Because his sleep was broken with
perplexing cares.
Verse 24
[24] There is nothing better for a man, than that he should
eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This
also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.
Enjoy — That he should thankfully take, and freely and
chearfully enjoy the comforts which God gives him.
It was — A singular gift of God.
Verse 25
[25] For who can eat, or who else can hasten hereunto, more
than I?
More than I — Therefore he could best tell
whether they were able of themselves, without God's special gift, to yield a
man content, in the enjoying of them. Who can pursue them with more diligence,
obtain them with more readiness, or embrace them with more greediness?
Verse 26
[26] For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom,
and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to
heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity
and vexation of spirit.
Wisdom — To direct him how to use his comforts aright; that so
they may be blessings, and not curses to him.
Joy — A thankful contented mind.
To heap up — He giveth him up to insatiable
desires, and wearisome labours, that he may leave it to others, yea to such as
he least desired, to good and virtuous men.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Ecclesiastes》
02 Chapter 2
Verses 1-26
Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth.
The threefold view of human life
Three views of human life are given in this remarkable chapter.
I. The theatrical
view of life (Ecclesiastes 2:1-11). The writer seeks to
prove his heart with mirth and laughter; he treats his flesh with wine; he
gathers peculiar treasure;
he is enamoured of greatness, magnificence, and abundance; he delights in
architecture, scenery, literature, music, song. Everything is spectacular,
dazzling, wonderful. This is a very misleading idea of the world in which we find
ourselves.
1. It is partial. Nothing whatever is said here of the problems which
challenge us--of duty, enterprise, discipline, work, sacrifice, suffering;
nothing about character or conduct. It really leaves out two-thirds of life,
and the noblest two-thirds.
2. It is exaggerated. It contemplates great works, great possessions,
and great fame. Life is largely made up of commonplace tasks, homely faces,
uneventful days, monotonous experiences.
3. It is selfish. You see throughout how prominent the individual is.
It is all “I.” The writer never thinks of other people except as they may
enhance his pleasure, or be spectators of his glory.
4. It is superficial. There is not a word about conscience,
righteousness, responsibility. Now beware of the theatrical view of life--of
the great, the gaudy, the glistering. True life, as a rule, is simple, sober,
and severe. Beware of companions who would represent life to you in a gay and
voluptuous light. Beware also of your reading, and see that it does not give a
false and delusive idea of the life that awaits you. The world is not a
theatre, not a magician’s cave, not a carnival; it is a temple where all things
are serious and sacred.
II. The sepulchral
view of life (Ecclesiastes 2:12-23). Men usually start
with the rosy ideal of life, and then finding its falsity--that there are tears
as well as laughter--they sink into vexation and despair, and paint all things
black as night. But the world is not emptiness; it is a cup deep and large,
delightful and overflowing. Fulness, not emptiness, is the sign of the world.
There is the fulness of nature--of intellectual life--of society--of practical
life--the manifold and enduring unfolding of the interests and movements and
fortunes of humanity. There is the fulness of religious life. A true man never
feels the world to be limited, meagre, shallow. God is no mockery, and He will
not mock us.
III. The religious
view of life (Ecclesiastes 2:24-26).
1. The purification and strengthening of the soul will secure to us
all the brightness and sweetness of life.
2. And as the Spirit of Christ leads to the realization of the bright
side of the world, so shall it fortify you against the dark side. Carry the Spirit of Christ into
this dark side, and you shall rejoice in tribulation also. In one of the
illustrated magazines I noticed a picture of the flower-market of Madrid in a
snowstorm. The golden and purple glories were mixed with the winter’s snow. And
in a true Christian life sorrow is strangely mingled with joy. Winter in
Siberia is one thing, winter in the flower-market of the South is another
thing; and so the power of sorrow is broken and softened in the Christian life
by great convictions, consolations, and hopes. Do not accept the theatrical view of
life; life is not all beer and ski[ties, operas, banquets, galas, and
burlesques. Do not accept the sepulchral theory of life; it is absolutely
false. Toequeville said to Sumner, “Life is neither a pain nor a pleasure, but
serious business, which it is our duty to carry through and conclude with
honour.” This is a true and noble conception of life, and it can be fulfilled
only as Christ renews and strengthens us. (W. L. Watkinson.)
The pleasures of sin and the pleasures of Christ’s service
contrasted
I. What are the
pleasures of sin?
1. They are present pleasures; now and here; not in the dim distance;
not in the next world, but in this.
2. They are varied and many: adapted to every taste, capacity, age,
condition.
3. They fall in with the desires and cravings of our carnal nature.
4. They possess the power to excite in a wonderful degree,--the
fancy, the mind, the passions,--ambition, lust, pride, etc.
II. What are the
pleasures or rewards of Christ’s service?
1. They are real and substantial, not fictitious and imaginary or
deceptive.
2. They are not all in the future. No small part of them are here,
and enjoyed day by day. Heaven is the ultimate state of blessedness, the final
reward in Christ’s service. But heaven is begun in every reconciled, sanctified
soul at once and progresses to the consummation.
3. Christ’s service is soul-satisfying. It touches, elevates,
expands, gives dignity to, and harmonizes and gladdens man’s highest nature.
4. The pleasure, the reward of Christ’s service is enduring. It fears
no death, knows no end. It is perpetual, everlasting, ever augmenting. (J.
M. Sherwood, D. D.)
A strange experiment
He now resolves to abandon the “studious cloisters.” For their
quiet he will substitute the excitement of feverish pleasure. But this
tremendous reaction from the joys of the philosopher to coarser animal pleasure
is not easy. He has to goad his mind before it is ready for this new and low
direction. He has to say to his heart, “Go to now, I will prove thee with
mirth.” What a fall is here, from the contemplation of high themes of truth,
the works of God and man, to merely sensual pleasure! But the experiment is
brief. It would be. For
a man of wisdom could not be long in discovering the utter worthlessness of
sensual gratification; sharp and swift comes the conclusion: “I said of
laughter, It is mad, and of mirth, What doeth it?” It has sometimes been the
question of thoughtful people how the wise man could bring himself to try this
second experiment, the effort to find happiness in “the lust of the flesh” and
“the lust of the eye.” This, it is usually thought, is the delight of fools.
But that a man who could say he “had seen the works that are done under the
sun,” whose philosophy had ranged over new things until they were seen to be the old
things recurrent, who could truly say that he had “gotten more wisdom than all
they that had been before him in Jerusalem,”--for such an one to fly from
philosophy to pleasure, from meditation to mirth, is accounted phenomenally
strange. But it is not. Across just such extremes does the restless spirit fly
that has not yet learned that happiness is not the creature of circumstance,
but the outgrowth of the life. And how it magnifies this inner character of
happiness to reflect that even wisdom pursued for its own sake may be seen to
be so hollow that the soul will fly to the farthest distance from it, inferring
that even sensual folly may be a relief from the emptiness of knowledge! (C.
L. Thompson, D. D.)
Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth.
The threefold view of human life
Three views of human life are given in this remarkable chapter.
I. The theatrical
view of life (Ecclesiastes
2:1-11). The writer
seeks to prove his heart with mirth and laughter; he treats his flesh with
wine; he gathers peculiar treasure;
he is enamoured of greatness, magnificence, and abundance; he delights in
architecture, scenery, literature, music, song. Everything is spectacular,
dazzling, wonderful. This is a very misleading idea of the world in which we
find ourselves.
1. It is partial.
Nothing whatever is said here of the problems which challenge us--of duty,
enterprise, discipline, work, sacrifice, suffering; nothing about character or
conduct. It really leaves out two-thirds of life, and the noblest two-thirds.
2. It is
exaggerated. It contemplates great works, great possessions, and great fame.
Life is largely made up of commonplace tasks, homely faces, uneventful days,
monotonous experiences.
3. It is selfish.
You see throughout how prominent the individual is. It is all “I.” The writer
never thinks of other people except as they may enhance his pleasure, or be
spectators of his glory.
4. It is
superficial. There is not a word about conscience, righteousness,
responsibility. Now beware of the theatrical view of life--of the great, the
gaudy, the glistering. True life, as a rule, is simple, sober, and severe.
Beware of companions who would represent life to you in a gay and voluptuous
light. Beware also of your reading, and see that it does not give a false and
delusive idea of the life that awaits you. The world is not a theatre, not a
magician’s cave, not a carnival; it is a temple where all things are serious
and sacred.
II. The sepulchral
view of life (Ecclesiastes
2:12-23). Men usually
start with the rosy ideal of life, and then finding its falsity--that there are
tears as well as laughter--they sink into vexation and despair, and paint all
things black as night. But the world is not emptiness; it is a cup deep and
large, delightful and overflowing. Fulness, not emptiness, is the sign of the
world. There is the fulness of nature--of intellectual life--of society--of
practical life--the manifold and enduring unfolding of the interests and
movements and fortunes of humanity. There is the fulness of religious life. A
true man never feels the world to be limited, meagre, shallow. God is no
mockery, and He will not mock us.
III. The religious
view of life (Ecclesiastes
2:24-26).
1. The
purification and strengthening of the soul will secure to us all the brightness
and sweetness of life.
2. And as the
Spirit of Christ leads to the realization of the bright side of the world, so
shall it fortify you against the
dark side. Carry the Spirit of Christ into this dark side, and
you shall rejoice in tribulation also. In one of the illustrated magazines I
noticed a picture of the flower-market of Madrid in a snowstorm. The golden and
purple glories were mixed with the winter’s snow. And in a true Christian life
sorrow is strangely mingled with joy. Winter in Siberia is one thing, winter in
the flower-market of the South is another thing; and so the power of sorrow is
broken and softened in the Christian life by great convictions, consolations,
and hopes. Do not accept the theatrical
view of life; life is not all beer and ski[ties, operas, banquets, galas, and
burlesques. Do not accept the sepulchral theory of life; it is absolutely
false. Toequeville said to Sumner, “Life is neither a pain nor a pleasure, but
serious business, which it is our duty to carry through and conclude with
honour.” This is a true and noble conception of life, and it can be fulfilled
only as Christ renews and strengthens us. (W. L. Watkinson.)
The pleasures of sin and the pleasures of Christ’s service
contrasted
I. What are the
pleasures of sin?
1. They are
present pleasures; now and here; not in the dim distance; not in the next world,
but in this.
2. They are varied
and many: adapted to every taste, capacity, age, condition.
3. They fall in
with the desires and cravings of our carnal nature.
4. They possess
the power to excite in a wonderful degree,--the fancy, the mind, the passions,--ambition,
lust, pride, etc.
II. What are the
pleasures or rewards of Christ’s service?
1. They are real
and substantial, not fictitious and imaginary or deceptive.
2. They are not
all in the future. No small part of them are here, and enjoyed day by day.
Heaven is the ultimate state of blessedness, the final reward in Christ’s
service. But heaven is begun in every reconciled, sanctified soul at once and
progresses to the consummation.
3. Christ’s
service is soul-satisfying. It touches, elevates, expands, gives dignity to,
and harmonizes and gladdens man’s highest nature.
4. The pleasure,
the reward of Christ’s service is enduring. It fears no death, knows no end. It
is perpetual, everlasting, ever augmenting. (J. M. Sherwood, D. D.)
A strange experiment
He now resolves to abandon the “studious cloisters.” For their
quiet he will substitute the excitement of feverish pleasure. But this
tremendous reaction from the joys of the philosopher to coarser animal pleasure
is not easy. He has to goad his mind before it is ready for this new and low
direction. He has to say to his heart, “Go to now, I will prove thee with
mirth.” What a fall is here, from the contemplation of high themes of truth,
the works of God and man, to merely sensual pleasure! But the experiment is
brief. It would be. For
a man of wisdom could not be long in discovering the utter worthlessness of
sensual gratification; sharp and swift comes the conclusion: “I said of
laughter, It is mad, and of mirth, What doeth it?” It has sometimes been the
question of thoughtful people how the wise man could bring himself to try this
second experiment, the effort to find happiness in “the lust of the flesh” and
“the lust of the eye.” This, it is usually thought, is the delight of fools.
But that a man who could say he “had seen the works that are done under the
sun,” whose philosophy had ranged over new things until they were seen to be the old
things recurrent, who could truly say that he had “gotten more wisdom than all
they that had been before him in Jerusalem,”--for such an one to fly from
philosophy to pleasure, from meditation to mirth, is accounted phenomenally
strange. But it is not. Across just such extremes does the restless spirit fly
that has not yet learned that happiness is not the creature of circumstance,
but the outgrowth of the life. And how it magnifies this inner character of
happiness to reflect that even wisdom pursued for its own sake may be seen to
be so hollow that the soul will fly to the farthest distance from it, inferring
that even sensual folly may be a relief from the emptiness of knowledge! (C.
L. Thompson, D. D.)
Verse 2
I said of laughter, It is mad.
The wit and the madman
If you were asked who had sat for the portrait of a madman, you
would be disposed to look out for some monster, some scourge of our race, in
whom vast powers had been at the disposal of ungoverned passions, and who had
covered a country with weeping and with desolate families; and at first we
might be readily tempted to conclude that Solomon employed somewhat exaggerated
terms when he identified laughter with madness. Neither need we suppose that
all laughter is indiscriminately condemned; as though gloom marked a sane person,
and cheerfulness an insane. “Rejoice evermore” is a scriptural direction, and
blithe-heartedness ought to be both felt and displayed by those who know that
they have God for their Guardian, and Christ for their Surety. But it is the
laughter of the world which the wise man calls madness; and there will be no
difficulty in showing you, in two or three instances, how close is the parallel
between the maniac and the man by whom this laughter is excited. We would first
point out to you how that conflict, of which this creation is the scene, and
the leading antagonists in which are Satan and God, is a conflict between
falsehood and truth. The entrance of evil was effected through a lie; and when
Christ promised the descent of the Holy Ghost, whose special office it was to
be to regenerate human kind, to restore their lost purity, and therewith their
lost happiness, He promised it under the character of the Spirit of truth; as
though truth were all that was needed to the making of this earth once more a
paradise. And it is in accordance with this representation of that great struggle, which
fixes the regards of higher orders of intelligence, as being a struggle between
falsehood and truth, that so much criminality is everywhere in Scripture
attached to a lie, and that those on whom a lie may be charged, are represented
as thereby more especially obnoxious to the anger of God. “A lying tongue,”
says the wise man, “is but for a moment”: as though sudden vengeance might be
expected to descend upon the liar, and sweep him away ere he could reiterate
the falsehood. And if there be thus, as it were, a kind of awful majesty in
truth, so that the swerving from it is emphatically treason against God and the
soul, it follows that whatever is calculated to diminish reverence for truth,
or to palliate falsehood, is likely to work as wide mischief as may well be
imagined. You are
all ready without hesitation to admit that nothing would go further towards
loosening the bonds of society than the destroying the shame which now attaches
to a lie; and accordingly you would rise up as by one common impulse to
withstand any man or any authority which should propose to shield the liar, or
to make his offence comparatively unimportant. But whilst the bold and direct
falsehood thus gains for itself the general execration, mainly perhaps because
felt to militate against the general interest, there is a ready indulgence in
the more sportive falsehood, which is rather the playing with truth than the
making a lie. Here it is that we shall find laughter which is madness, and
identify with a madman him by whom the laughter is raised. There is very
frequently a departure from truth in that mirthful discourse to which Solomon
refers. In amusing a table, and causing light-heartedness and gaiety to go
round the company, men may be teaching others to view with less abhorrence a
lie, or diminishing in them that sanctity of truth which is at once an
admirable virtue and essential to the existence of any other. I do not fear the
influence of one whom the world denounces as a liar; but I do of one whom it
applauds as a wit. I fear it in regard of reverence for truth--a reverence
which, if it do not of itself make a great character, must be strong
wheresoever the character is great. The man who passes off a clever fiction, or
amusingly distorts an occurrence, or dextrously misrepresents a fact, may say
that he only means to be amusing, and that nothing is further from his thoughts
than the doing an injury; but nevertheless, forasmuch as it can hardly fail but
that he will lower the majesty of truth in the eyes of his neighbour, there may
be equally ample reason for assenting to the wise man’s decision--“I said of
laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?” But we have not yet given
the worst case of that laughter which may be identified with madness. It is
very true, that whatever tends to diminish men’s abhorrence of a lie, tends
equally to the spreading confusion and wretchedness, and may therefore be
justly classed amongst things which resemble the actings of a maniac. It is
also true that this tendency exists in much of that admired conversation whose
excellence virtually lies in its falseness; so that the correspondence is clear
between the wit and the madman. But it is not perhaps till the laughter is
turned upon sacred things that we have before us the madness in all its
wildness and in all its injuriousness. The man who in any way exercises his wit
upon the Bible conveys undoubtedly an impression, whether he intend it or not,
that he is not a believer in the inspiration of the Bible; for it is altogether
insupposable that a man who really recognized in the Bible the Word of the
living God, who felt that its pages had been traced by the very hand which
spread out the firmament, should select from it passages to parody, or
expressions which might be thrown into a ludicrous form. It may be true that he
does this only in joke, and with no evil design; he never meant, he may tell
you, when he introduced Scripture ridiculously, or amused his companions by
sarcastic allusions to the peculiarities of the pious--he never meant to
recommend a contempt for religion, or to insinuate a disbelief in the Bible,
and perhaps he never did; but nevertheless, even if you acquit him of harmful
intention, and suppose him utterly unconscious that he is working a moral
injury, he who frames jokes on sacred things, or points his wit with scriptural
allusions, may do far more mischief to the souls of his fellow-men than if he
engaged openly in assaulting the great truths of Christianity. If you have
heard a text quoted in a ridiculous sense, or applied to some laughable
occurrence, you will hardly be able to separate the text from that occurrence;
the association will be permanent; and when you hear the text again, though it may
be in the house of God, or under circumstances which make you wish for the most
thorough concentration of thought on the most awful things, yet will there come
back upon you- all the joke and all the parody, so that the mind will be
dissipated and the very sanctuary profaned. And hence the justice of
identifying with madness the laughter excited by reference to sacred things.
Now, the upshot of the whole matter is, that we ought to set a watch upon our
tongues, to pray God to keep the door of our lips. “Death and life are in the
power of the tongue.” Of all the gifts with which we have been entrusted, the
gift of speech is perhaps that through which we may work most of evil or of
good, and nevertheless it is that of whose right exercise we seem to make least
account. It appears to us a hard saying, that for every idle word which they
speak men shall give an account at the last, and we scarcely discern any
proportion between a few syllables uttered without thought and those
retributive judgments which must be looked for hereafter; but if you observe
how we have been able to vindicate the correctness of the assertion of our
text, though it be only the idle talker whose laughter is declared to be
madness, effecting the same results, and producing the same evils as the fury
of the uncontrolled maniac, you will see that a word may be no insignificant
thing--that its consequences may be widely disastrous, and certainly the
speaker is answerable for the consequences which may possibly ensue, however
God may prevent their actual occurrence. The fiction may not make a liar, and
the jest may not make an infidel, but since it is the tendency of the fiction
to make liars, and the tendency of the jest to make infidels, he who invents
the one, or utters the other, is as criminal as though the result had been the
same as the tendency. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Verse 11
I
looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had
laboured to do.
The review
Our
Lord pronounced the children of this world “wise in their generation”: and who
can doubt that thousands who are lost would, with God’s blessing, be saved, did
they bring the same prudence, and diligence, and energy to their eternal, as
they do to their temporal interests? Some years ago a man was called to decide
between preserving his life, and parting with the gains of his lifetime. A
gold-digger, he stood on the deck of a ship that, coming from Australian shores,
had--as some all but reach heaven--all but reached her harbour in safety. But,
as the proverb runs, there is much between the cup and the lip. Night came
lowering down; and with the night a storm that wrecked ship, and hopes, and
fortunes, all together. The dawning light but revealed a scene of horror--death
staring them in the face. The sea, lashed into fury, ran mountains high; no
boat could live in her. One chance still remained. Pale women, weeping
children, feeble and timid men, must die; but a stout, brave swimmer, with
trust in God, and disencumbered of all impediment, s, might reach the shore,
where hundreds stood ready to dash into the boiling surf, and, seizing, save
him. One man was observed to go below. He bound around his waist a heavy belt, filled
with gold, the hard gains of his life; and returned to the deck. One after
another, he saw his fellow-passengers leap overboard. After a brief but
terrible struggle, head after head went down--sunk by the gold they had fought
hard to gain, and were loath to lose. Slowly he was seen to unbuckle his belt.
If he parts with it, he is a beggar; but then if he keeps it, he dies. He
poised it in his hand; balanced it for a while; took a long, sad look at it;
and then with one strong, desperate effort, flung it far out into the roaring
sea. Wise man! It sinks with a sullen plunge; and now he follows it--not to
sink, but, disencumbered of its weight, to swim; to beat the billows manfully;
and, riding on the foaming surge, to reach the shore. Well done, brave gold-digger!
Aye, well done, and well chosen; but if “a man will give all that he hath for
his life,” how much more should he give all he hath for his soul! Better to
part with gold than with God; to bear the heaviest cross than miss a heavenly
crown.
I. Inquire what we have done for god. We have had many, daily,
innumerable, opportunities of serving Him, speaking for Him, working for Him,
not sparing ourselves for Him who spared not His own Son for us. Yet, how
little have we attempted; and how much less have we done in the spirit of our
Saviour’s words, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” There
is no moor in our country so barren as our hearts. They drink up God’s
blessings as the sands of the Sahara heaven’s rain.
II. Inquire what we have done for ourselves. No profit? Do you reply,
I have made large profits--my business has paid me, and yielded large
returns--I have added acres to my lands. But, let me say that that, perhaps, is
not all you have added. What if by every day you have lived without God and for
the world, you have added difficulties to your salvation; shackles to your
limbs; bars to your prison; guilt to your soul; sins to your debt; thorns to
your dying pillow? Let no man be cast down; give way to despair! Years are
lost; but the soul is not yet lost. There is still time to be saved. Haste,
then, and away.
III. Inquire what we have done for others. Suppose that our blessed
Lord, sitting down on Olivet to review the years of His busy life, had looked
on all the works which His hands had wrought,--what a crowd, a long procession
of miracles and mercies had passed before Him! I believe there were more good
works crowded into one single day of Christ’s life than you will find spread
over the lifelong history of any Christian. Trying our piety by this test, what
testimony does our past life bear to its character? The tree is known by its
fruits. In conclusion--
1. This review, God’s
Spirit blessing it, should awaken careless sinners.
2. This review should stir up God’s people. (T. Guthrie, D.
D.)
Love not the
world
I. The habit of men in pursuing worldly objects.
1. By worldly objects we mean those which terminate entirely on the
earth, and which occupy human thought and pursuit without any connection with
spiritual and eternal things.
2. The cause to which the pursuit of worldly objects is to be
ascribed it is of course of immense importance to assign and to remember; and
that cause is to be found only in the moral corruption or depravity of human
nature.
II. The evils by which the pursuit of worldly objects is invariably
attended.
1. The pursuit of worldly objects is associated with much
disappointment and sorrow in the present state.
2. The pursuit of worldly objects places in jeopardy the final and immortal
happiness of the soul.
III. The vast importance of turning our attention from worldly objects,
and of seeking the attainment of far higher blessings.
1. As we are devoted to religion, in the present world we obtain
solid satisfaction and peace. There is no disappointment in religion; all that
it confers is solid and lasting; nor is there one who under Divine grace has
been led to yield his heart to its power, who does not at once, according to
its legitimate operation, find the storms and tempests of the spirit subside
into one placid and beautiful calm.
2. As we are devoted to religion, we secure, beyond the present
state, the salvation and immortal happiness of the soul. (J. Parsons.)
The failure of
pleasures
I. The pleasures of great and good men may be vanity and vexation of
spirit. Solomon was great, and he was good. This is the inspired judgment of
him (Nehemiah 13:26). But he had for the time declined from greatness, swerved from
goodness, and it was in this search for pleasure. Here we see how degraded a
man of high rank, splendid genius, rich character, may become. Truly “the
pinnacle overhangs the precipice.”
II. The pleasures of skill and toil may become vanity and vexation of
spirit. Those that Solomon found so utterly dissatisfying were not alone
pleasures of appetite and of indulgence. There were thought, contrivance,
taste, effort involved. So pleasures along the lines even of art, and science, and
literature may, as Dundas, and David Scott, and Chesterfield all prove, become
vanity and vexation of spirit.
III. Pleasures in themselves fitted to delight may become vanity and
vexation of spirit. The abundance of life, the hues of the flowers, the
fragrance and melodies and shade, all make “gardens” sources of exquisite
delight, and it may be of innocent and high delight, for God planted a garden
for unfallen man. Yet these gardens gave no satisfaction to Solomon; and
similarly many real pleasures give no joy to men. So it has with many become an
adage, that “Life would be very tolerable if it were not for its amusements.”
IV. In all these cases the selfish search for pleasure has made it
vanity and vexation of spirit. It was thus with Solomon: it will be thus with
all. Selfishness is the cankerworm in the flower of such pleasures, the alloy
that the laboratory of such experiences as Solomon discovers in such would-be delights.
(R. Thomas.)
The vanity of
worldly happiness
There
is no man living can ever expect to be in more happy outward circumstances than
Solomon was, or to enjoy more of this world’s good than Solomon did. And if he,
after all, found nothing but labour and trouble, and dissatisfaction and
emptiness, no real profit, no advantage in any worldly thing, what must we
expect to find? Certainly no better fortune than he did. And if this be the
case of mankind, how unaccountable is it that any of us should fix our thoughts
and designs, our comforts and expectancies upon anything under the sun. It is
just the same folly that those men are guilty of, that being tossed up and down
at sea, yet nevertheless desire to be still there, and cannot endure to think
of coming to a port. It is the madness of those, that being condemned to dig in
the mines, are so much in love with toil and labour, with chains and darkness,
that they despise a life above ground, a life of light and liberty. In a word,
it is the fantastic punishment of Tantalus in the poets that these men wish for
themselves: they desire to spend their time for ever in gaping after those
lovely pleasant fruits which (they fancy) seem almost to touch their mouths.
Yet all their labour is in vain; and as they never did, so they never shall be
able to come at them.
1. Let us consider the continual toil and labour that mankind in this
world are exposed to. The despatching of one business is but the making room for some
other, and possibly more troublesome one, that is presently to follow after. We
toil till we are weary, and have exhausted our strength and spirits, and then
we think to refresh and recruit ourselves; but, alas! that refreshment is only
to prepare and enable us for the bearing the next hour’s burthen, which will
inevitably come upon us.
2. But this is not all: we might, possibly, find some comfort in that
pains and labour we take in this world, at least they would be much more supportable if
we were sure our designs would always succeed; if we were sure to attain that
which we labour for; but, alas! it is oftentimes quite otherwise. We meet with
frequent disappointments in our endeavours; nay, we cannot say beforehand of
anything we undertake that it shall certainly come to pass as we would have it.
And this is a matter that renders the world a place of still more restlessness
and disquiet.
3. Supposing, after several disappointments, and with much
difficulty, we do attain our ends, and get what our souls desired, yet doth the
thing answer our expectation? Do we find that it is fit, and good, and
convenient for us? If so, then we seem to have laboured to some purpose. But if
not, then we are but still where we were; nay, we had better never have
troubled our heads about it. In all our labours we either hit, or miss; we
either succeed, or are disappointed. If we be disappointed, we are certainly
troubled; and if we do succeed, for anything we know, that very success may
prove our greatest unhappiness.
4. But let us suppose that we have brought no inconvenience upon
ourselves by our choice. Let us suppose our designs were reasonable, and they
rightly succeeded, and the circumstances of our condition are every way fit and
proper for us; yet, is this sufficient to procure us content? Alas! there is
too much reason to fear the contrary; for such is the constitution of this
world, that let us be in what circumstances we will, yet we shall meet with many
troubles and inconveniencies that do necessarily flow from the nature of that
condition which we are in, though otherwise it may be the fittest for us of all
others. There is no sincere unmingled good to be met with. Every state of life,
as it hath something of good in it, so the best hath some evil displeasing
appendages inseparable adhering to it. Nay, perhaps, in true speaking, the
worldly happiness of any man’s condition is not to be measured by the multitude
of goods he enjoyeth in it, but rather by the fewness of the evils it brings
upon him.
5. But let us suppose we find no inconvenience in the circumstances
of our lives: we will suppose we are possessed of many goods from the enjoyment
of which we may promise to ourselves solid contentment and satisfaction. These
are our present thoughts. But are we sure we shall always continue in the same
mind? Are we sure that that which is now very grateful and agreeable, and affects us with a
sensible pleasure and delight, will continue always to do so? On the contrary,
have we not much reason to fear, that, in a little time, it will grow dull and
unaffecting; nay, possibly, very irksome and displeasing?
6. To all these things let us add the numberless daily troubles and
discomposures of mind, not peculiar to any condition, as those I spoke of
before, but common to all, arising from men’s minds and tempers, and the things
and persons they converse with in the world. It is a melancholy consideration;
but I believe the experience of mankind will make it good, that there is scarce
a day in our lives that we pass in perfect uninterrupted peace and content, but
something or other every day happens that gives us trouble, and makes us uneasy
to ourselves.
7. But what must we say of the many sad accidents and more grievous
and weighty afflictions that do frequently exercise the patience of mankind? If
in the best condition of human life men are not happy, but everything is able
to ruffle and disorder them; O how miserable are they in the worst! So long as
we have mortal bodies exposed to sickness and diseases, to sad accidents and
casualties; so long as we have a frail nature that betrays us to a thousand
follies and sins; so long as we have dear friends and relations, or children,
that we may be deprived of; so long as we may prove unfortunate in our
marriage, or in our posterity, or in the condition of life we have chosen; so
long as there are men to slander us, or to rob us, or to undermine us; so long
as there are storms at sea, or fire upon land; so long as there are enemies
abroad, or tumults, seditions, and turns of state at home: I say, so long as we
are exposed to these things, we must, every one of us, expect, in some degree
or other, to bear a share in the miseries of the world. And now, all these
things considered, judge ye whether
this world doth look like a place of rest; whether it is not rather a stage of
calamities and sad events. Judge ye whether the best of human things be not
“vanity”: but the worst of them intolerable “vexation of spirit.”
8. Which will still appear the more evident if we add this, that
though all we have hitherto said did go for nothing; though we could be
supposed to be exempted from all those inconveniencies and mischiefs I have
mentioned; though we could be supposed to be capable of an uninterrupted
enjoyment of the good things of this life as long as we live; yet even this
would not satisfy much to the making our state in this world easy and happy;
for there is one thing still would spoil all such hopes and pretences, and that
is, the fear of death, which hath made mankind all their lifetime subject to
bondage (Hebrews 2:15). O what a dismal reflection must this needs be to a man who bath
set up his rest in this world, and dreams of no other happiness but what he
hath here! To think that in a few years at the farthest, but possibly in a few
months or days, he shall lie down in the dust, and then all that he hath here
possessed and enjoyed is lost and gone, irrecoverably gone! O that we would
seriously think upon these things! We should certainly have this advantage by
it, that we should not any longer be cheated with the gaudy appearances of this
world, but look after something more solid, more substantial, than anything we
find here to live for, to set our hearts and affections upon. (Abp. Sharp.)
The vanity of
life
Consider
the vanity of the present state of being, considered as our only state.
Suppose, first, that a decree were to go forth perpetuating your present
condition--pronouncing that you should remain eternally just as you are now.
How would you receive such a decree? Is there one of you who would be willing
to stop the wheel of fortune now and for ever? If you will look into your own
hearts you will find that you are living more in the future than in the
present, more in your plans than in your possessions,.
that
you depend more on what you think that you are laying up for time to come than
on any means of enjoyment actually in hand. But what will this future on which
you are building bring to you? Incompleteness, vexation, disappointment,
bereavement, sorrow. Few of your blossoms will ripen into fruit; few of your
plans will be realized; very little of what you now clearly see in the future
will shape itself as you see it. The farther you go on in life, the more blighted hopes
will lie behind you, the more vacant places will there be in the circle of your
kindred and friendship, the more will there be in your outward condition to
make you feel that there is no rest or home for you on this side of the grave. Again, if you
would look into your hearts, in the gayest and most gladsome moments of earthly
enjoyment, you will perceive much of this same emptiness and vanity. Who has
not at such times been conscious, as it were, of a double self, of an
uneasiness in the midst of gratification, of a restless feeling in the very
fulness of seeming joy, of a voice that whispers, “Up and be doing,” while many
voices bid us stay, and drown all other thoughts in the scene before ha? But
though at these seasons such thoughts will come over us, we crowd them out.
There are, however, times when they are forced upon us, and we cannot expel
them. There are times of sudden and overwhelming grief, when calamity breaks in
upon us like a swift flood, and seems to wash away the very ground on which we
stand--that earth’s fairest mansions are but whited sepulchres, her choicest
fruit but dust and ashes. We are then conscious of the frailty of what remains
to us, no less than of what has been taken from us, and can say from the heart
that there is nothing here below on which we can place the least
dependence,--nothing which we dare to love as we have loved, or to trust as we
have trusted. Then, were it not for the words of eternal life, we could say in
intense anguish,--“All is vanity and vexation of spirit, and there is no profit
under the sun.” But after all, though we walk in a vain show, there is
enjoyment in life,--in our mere earthly life. Yet from what does it flow? Not
from the ever-changing scene, not from the winter-frozen and summer-dried
fountains around us, but from the unchanging love of God, the bow of whose
promise remains fixed over the stream of time and the waves of unceasing
vicissitude. He who gives the ravens their food feeds also His human children,
and by filling all things with His love makes us happy. And, blessed be God,
there is that in life which is not vanity or vexation. The outer man may
perish, the desire of eyes and the pride of life may fail; but the signature of
God’s spirit on the inner man time cannot efface, or the waves of death wash
away. The soul, character, virtue, piety, remain, amidst the reverses of
fortune, the desolation of our households, the wasting of disease, and the
thunder-blast of death. (A. P. Peabody.)
Verse 14
The
wise man’s eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness.
The advantage
of wisdom over folly
Wisdom
possesses the same advantage over folly that sight does over blindness. The man
of wisdom, having all his wits about him, in the full possession and the
appropriate exercise of all his faculties, “guides his affairs with
discretion,” looks before him, thinks maturely of what he is doing, and by his
knowledge of men and things, is directed to the adoption of plans which promise
to be profitable, and to the prudent and successful prosecution of them. He
“foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself.” He aims at worthy ends, and employs
suitable means for their accomplishment. But the fool--the ignorant, and
inconsiderate, and improvident man--is continually in danger of stumbling, or
of going astray, like a person overtaken by darkness, who “knoweth not whither
he goeth.” He is ever prone to run blindly and heedlessly into absurd and
injurious projects, or to destroy such as are in themselves good, by blundering
in the execution of them. The fool’s eyes, it is elsewhere said, are “in the
ends of the earth,” roaming vainly and idly abroad, without serving his present
and needful purposes; gazing, as the organs of a vacant mind, on far-off
objects, and allowing him to stumble over what is immediately in his way.
Without foresight to anticipate probable evils, without even sagacity to avoid
such as are present, the fool is in perpetual hazard of iniuring and ruining
both himself and all who are so unfortunate as to stand connected with him, or
to be exposed to his influence. (R. Wardlaw, D. D.)
The wisdom of
the eye
I. To understand this proverb, notice, first, the contrasts which it
suggests. One of these is expressed in the context; the other is to be readily
and clearly inferred.
1. First, there is a contrast between persons. We have before us the
believer in God and the unbeliever, the child of light and the child of
darkness, the converted and the unconverted, the spiritual and the natural.
Whatever may be their relative state of knowledge or ignorance, of wealth or
poverty, in the sense of the Bible of truth, and in the judgment of the God of truth,
the one is wise and the other a fool.
2. Secondly, there is a contrast implied: “The wise man’s eyes are in
his head, but the fool walketh in darkness.” And why is his path in darkness?
Because, unlike the wise man, his eyes are not in his head; if they had been
there, he would have walked in light, surely, safely. But they are in his
heart, and so he walks foolishly, erringly, darkly. The eye in the head--the
wise man’s eye, sees under the direction of reason, and faith, and of right
understanding. The eye in the heart--the fool’s eye, sees under the direction
of the affections, the disposition and the feelings. And so, while the one man
walks in light, the other man walks in darkness.
II. But now let me more pointedly and practically set out the meaning
of this verse. Let us take by itself each part of this proverb and consider it.
1. First, then, it is implied that the fool’s eyes are in his heart.
He sees all things through the medium of his own wishes and inclinations; his
reason and conscience do not control, but they are possessed by his
inclinations.
2. But “the wise man’s eyes are in his head.” The light of a holy
knowledge shines upon them, and in this light the eye of reason and of faith,
the eye, not of blind inclination, but of Christian consciousness and
confidence, sees light.
One event happeneth to them all.--
Wisdom and
folly compared
Looking
simply at knowledge as such, and looking merely at the brief span of our
existence “under the sun,” we must confess that the wise man is sometimes as
powerless as the fool. Two men take their seats in a railway train. The one man
is an accomplished scholar, or mathematician, or philosopher. He has
disciplined his mental powers, and has amassed large stores of knowledge. He
has even acquired, it may be a certain reputation as a man of learning, or as a
leader of the thoughts of others. The man who is sitting beside him cares
nothing for intellectual culture. Animal enjoyment is his ideal. Give him a
good dinner, and you may keep your books to yourself! He could never see any
good in racking his brains over hard problems. There sit these two men in the railway carriage, side
by side: the one, perhaps, reading the latest book of science; the other,
perhaps, glancing through some “Sporting Gazette.” Suddenly, in a moment, there
comes the collision which it was utterly impossible for either of them to
foresee: the
train is a wreck; and these two lie together, crushed, mangled, and dead! “One
event, one chance, has happened to them both!” Now, shut out the thought of
God, and the thought of immortality, and what “advantage” has the one man over
the other? The student has had his intellectual enjoyments: the votary of
pleasure has had his enjoyments also. The scholar, along with his enjoyment,
has had much fatiguing toil, and, it may be, painful thought; the
pleasure-seeker also has doubtless, on his part experienced some of the
penalties of self-indulgence. The lover of knowledge has, indeed, had this
advantage, that his “eyes” have been “in his head”: he has had a wider and
clearer vision; and he has lived a higher kind of life. But to what purpose?
Where is the permanent advantage? These two men have lived their short span:
and here has come Death, as the great leveller! For a few years, perhaps, the
scholar may be spoken of; his name may even get into some “biographical
dictionary” but, unless he is one of a very select few, it will be little more
than a name, and, in the ages to come, he will be altogether forgotten. To what
purpose, then, has he “scorned delights, and lived laborious days”? Can he be
said to have made the best use of human life, if he has simply spent it in
acquiring a “wisdom” which leaves him, in the end, indistinguishable from the
fool? Thus, then, we seem to be driven to the same conclusion as Ecclesiastes.
Whatever advantages earthly wisdom has, it cannot be regarded as the chief good
for man. The amassing of knowledge as the one supreme object of human existence
is a vain delusion: it is a “feeding on wind”: it fails to satisfy the deepest
cravings of the human soul. (T. C. Finlayson.)
Verse 17
Therefore
I hated life.
Is life worth
living
“Is
life worth living?” is a question that is continually coming before the public
mind in one form or another. When Mr. Maddock’s book appeared, as many of you
may remember, there was an attempt to make light of it by the pun contained in
the supposed doctor’s answer, “It depends on the liver.” This has been
capped by “Punch’s” clergyman, who replies, “It depends on the living.” One
must, however, approach the matter with the utmost seriousness, as it touches
upon the deep basal truths and principles of existence, and is too solemn a
subject to admit of any flippancy in our treatment of it. The problem would be
met by an unqualified affirmative wherever life is young, healthy, and active,
and the environment favourable to a rich, varied, and exuberant form of
existence. In some respects, therefore, the doctor is right; it does depend
upon the state of the health and the physical condition. I wonder what a happy
schoolboy, rushing out with the football under his arm, would say if he were
asked, “Is life worth living?” His expression would be a curious study as he gave
his reply, and would itself convey deep significance. What a happy thing it
would be if that schoolboy aspect of life were only exchanged for a deeper
conviction of its fuller value and noble possibilities, and that it should
never occur to us to ask whether this breath of life might not as well cease,
and that perhaps the whole had been a hideous mistake! The words of the
Koheleth express the sentiment of those who thus pass an adverse sentence upon
the value of life, condemning both the career of the wise man and the fool, and
who have come to hate life, for “all is vanity and vexation of spirit” or “a
striving after wind.” The grand old Greeks, with their highly-refined
conditions of life, and life itself full of richness and variety, end ennobled
by the splendid idealism of the fine arts, now and then fell into this sad
vein. Even the ancient poet, the “sunny-brewed” Homer, sang--
“For there is nothing
whatever more wretched than man
Of all things that breathe
and that move o’er the earth.”
We
have, further, in Theognis, “It would be best for the children of the earth not
to be born . . . next best for them, when born, to pass through the gates of
Hades as soon as possible.” Can anything be more touching than the words of
Cassandra in “Agamemnon” by AEschylus: “Alas for the conditions of
mortals! When prosperous, a shadow may overturn them; if, however, they be in
adversity, a moistened sponge blots out the picture.” Then we find Seneca, one
of the best of the Roman Stoics, whose maxims came so near to many of the
sayings of St. Paul, praising death as the “best invention of nature,” and
Marcus Aurelius, “a seeker after God,” expressing his disgust at human life,
with the apostrophe, “O death, delay not thy coming.” There is much the same in
the literature of Persia, and in the sphere of the religion of “the light.” The
pure-souled and seraphic Buddha considers that “True wisdom is a desire to be
nothing, to be blown out, to enter into Nirvana, i.e.
extinction.” Coming to modern times we find in French literature of the
Pompadour period the same strain of melancholy. Diderot wrote, “To be, amid
pain and weeping, the plaything of uncertainty, of error, of want, of sickness,
and of passions--every step, from the moment when we learn to lisp, to the time
of departure, when our voice falters--this is called the most important gift of
our parents and of nature--life.” This is more than equalled by the words of
Sehelling, “The death’s head never fails behind the ogling mask, and life is
only the cap and bells which the nonentity has donned just to make a jingle,
and afterwards to tear it to pieces and east it away.” These instances will
suffice to indicate the strongly marked pessimistic tendency amongst some of
the finest thinkers, and would lead those who are predisposed to this kind of
philosophizing to the inevitable conviction that, on the whole, life is not
worth living.
1. The value of life, if judged from the point of view of happiness,
depends upon the sum of its functional activities and interests. Our pessimistic
views concerning life are largely the result of our mistaken ideas of
happiness. We are apt to imagine that health, leisure, and a splendid income
are absolutely necessary to our happiness; and when there is a prospect of
losing these permanently, life is no longer desirable. No man is really unhappy
who realizes that he has work to do and sets himself in earnest to do it. The
utmost of pain and sorrow can be borne if only one has an object in life. Men
who throw up all for lost are those who have abandoned, if they ever had it,
their object in life. Let a person once set his mind upon some worthy aim, and
allow his interest to centre in that, and let it absorb his energies, and never
will he think of laying violent hands upon himself. When the Christians
assembled in the catacombs we discover none of those traces of pessimism that
are so characteristic of the poems of Horace. Their interest was centred in
their Lord and Master, and His royal will. We can understand, then, how a truly
Christian man, following in the experiences of the Apostle Paul, would
apprehend Christ to be the true object of existence. “To live is Christ,” to
learn about Christ, to live for Christ, to gain Christ, and to realize the life
and character of Christ within oneself, so that the very principle of the
within, is Christ. Such realization gives life its value.
2. The value of life further depends upon its extrinsic utilities in
the service of our fellows. We owe a debt of gratitude to the past,
which can only be paid to the future, for this, and it is a point of
honour, that every man should acknowledge, to make his life valuable to others
to those who shall come after him. It would be ignoble to slight that which has
cost so much to develop, and especially since every life is capable of being
made useful in a greater or less degree.
3. If we are men of faith we shall value life for the sake of its
higher development beyond the grave. Even though this life were spent in a
purgatory of torture, or a hell of pain, which life need never be, no one who
believes in the Christ can deny that the great hereafter will more than
obliterate the traces of this sorrowful world in the glorious activities of the
heavenly state and all its grand developments. Cheer up, brothers, and brace
yourselves for manly effort. There are no sorrows or difficulties that a
brave-hearted man, who trusts in Cod, need fear to encounter. Whatever straits
one may find oneself in, there is no lot so painful, so bitter, or so trying
that it may not be sweetened and ennobled by effort--and that effort will be
our joy. (J. G. James, B. A.)
Pessimism and
optimism
(with
Psalms 27:1):--We all of us are by turns followers of the laughing
philosopher and of the weeping philosopher. Life sometimes appears full of joy,
at other times full of sorrow. Hence the folly of labelling the souls of our
fellow-men is manifest, of calling one man an optimist and another a pessimist.
Deep souls are both at different periods of their development. We are all
pilgrims; and so we pass through many widely different countries during our
journey. And it is much to be wished that men would not be so precipitate in
guessing at the goal or terminus, to which the spirits of their brethren are
going. To all of us that really think, there has been given a new commandment:
and it is this, Thou shalt not label thy brother’s soul. Pessimism is often
like the moulting of birds, a thing not pleasing in itself, but still a
necessary process. A moulting eagle is grander far than a well-conditioned
sparrow. Pessimism is often only a sort of prolonged moulting of the divine
eagle wings of the most soaring faith and the noblest compassion and love.
1. Christianity has obviously very much in common with pessimism. It
has nothing in common with the fantastic optimism of Emerson, which
deliberately chooses to ignore the darker side of human life. It plainly
teaches that the present condition of the world is abnormal, and in many
respects evil. Our religion fully recognizes the fact that we are pilgrims and
strangers here, and that our life is essentially a warfare. It does not require
us to be always in a triumphant mood. It knows that many of the very greatest
of the elect are destined to pass long years in the dark valley of the shadow
of death. It blesses those that mourn.
2. Christianity nowhere teaches that pleasure, or even happiness, is
the end or object of life. On the contrary, our religion teaches that progress
through suffering is the real end and object of our life. The doctrine of the
Cross, with its divine amplitude of meaning is to use a precious rock-hewn path
of safety between the deceptive quagmire of a flimsy Emersonian optimism and
the hideous abysses of a despairing pessimism. The very fact that God has
brought the human race so far in its spiritual pilgrimage forbids any
reasonable despair. The old, sacred, guiding fire of the Eternal still leads us
on. The burning and unearthly splendours of the mighty Ideal from time to time
disperse the thick clouds of the actual. The far-off goal of the human race
gleams fitfully on our worn eyes; even amidst the heartbreaking sorrow of
prolonged moral failure, an angel of the Divine pity sometimes “carries us away
in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shows us that great city, the
holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.” There, in God’s nearer
presence, the ailing soul knows that it shall one day grow well and strong. (A.
Crawford, M. A.)
Tired of life
What
are the causes of suicide? The general impression is, insanity: this is for the
most part the verdict of juries over the corpse of the self-slain man. But
insanity is not always the cause. In most cases of suicide there have been
displayed on the part of the perpetrator forethought, deliberation, plan. What
then can prompt a man who is not actually mad to this terrible deed?
I. Severe trials. The feeling that Solomon had, rushes into the soul
of not a few at times. The children of Israel in the wilderness had it when they
said, “Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt.” Elijah had it when he
said, “It is enough now, O Lord! take away my life.” Job had it when he said,
“I loathe it: I would not live alway.”
II. Sickening satiety. The men of leisure and affluence, who are freed
from tile necessity of work, enterprise, and business, who fare sumptuously
every day, and run the round of fashionable life and sensuous enjoyment, have
always shown the greatest susceptibility to this disgust with life.
Over-indulgence in worldly pleasures seldom fails to produce a moral nausea.
There is what the French call the ennui that comes out of it, “that
awful yawn,” says Byron, “that sleep cannot abate.” As a proof of this, in the
countries where luxuries most abound, suicides are the most numerous. Whilst in
Sweden there is only one suicide to every ninety-two thousand people, in Paris
there is one to every three thousand.
III. Spiritual disgust. Men whose moral susceptibilities are
exquisitely tender, whose intellectual eye is keen and strong enough to
penetrate into the motives that govern society, and whose sympathies run
strongly with the right, the true, and the divine, often experience such an
inexpressible revulsion at certain popular developments of character and phases
of society, as to lead them to say with Solomon, “I hated life; because the
work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me.”
IV. Temperamental melancholy. So oppressive does the dark atmosphere
of their irritable tempers become, that they are ready to seize the rope or the
razor, or to plunge into the river.
V. Inordinate emotionality. There are those whose emotional natures
seem stronger than their intellectual force. The winds and the waves of passion
are too strong for the helmsman. Their emotional nature is like a deep and
tumultuous sea, whose billows are ever breaking over the walls of their
understanding. Sometimes, for example, revenge is a passion that prompts the
deed. Samson was an example of this. Sometimes humiliation prompts the deed.
Something occurs which overwhelms the man with shame. Ahithophel is an example
of this. Sometimes desperation prompts the deed. Sometimes fear overwhelms the
man, and prompts the deed. It was thus with the Philippian jailor. Sometimes
remorse prompts the self-destroying deed. No passion that can seize the soul is
so unbearable as this; “A wounded spirit, who can bear?” Thus Judas, when he
saw that Christ, whom he had betrayed, was condemned to death, his guilty
conscience made life so intolerable that he went out and hanged himself. Other
passions may be mentioned, such as jealousy, which perhaps is the most prolific
parent of suicides of all the passions. I learn from this subject--
1. That the poor need not envy the condition of the rich.
2. That all men have not an equal love of life.
3. That confidence in the redemptive Providence that is over us is
the only security for a happy life.
The
voice of Providence to every man is, not only “Do thyself no harm”: but free
thyself from all anxious cares, and trust in the love and guidance of the great
Father King. (Homilist.)
Disgust with
life
The
connection of our text with preceding and following verses, and its perfect
harmony with the design of the wise man, which was to decry the world and its
pleasures, and by his own experience to undeceive such as made idols of them,
authorize us to consider the words as proceeding from the mouth of Solomon
himself, expressive of his own sentiments and not those of others, and what he
thought after his reconversion, and not what his opinion was during his
dissipation.
I. On this principle we will first rid the text of several false
meanings, which it may seem at first sight to countenance; for as there is a disgust
with the world, and a contempt of life, which wisdom inspires, so there is a
hatred of the world, that ariseth from evil dispositions.
1. We may hate life because we are melancholy. Only he whose ideas
are disconcerted by a dark and gloomy temper can say fully and without
qualification, “I hate life.” To attribute such a disposition to the wise man
is to insult the Holy Spirit who animated him.
2. Some are disgusted with life from a principle of misanthropy. What
is a misanthrope, or a hater of mankind? lie is a man who avoids society only
to free himself from the trouble of being useful to it. He is a man who
considers his neighbours only on the side of their defects, not knowing the art
of combining their virtues with their vices, and of rendering the imperfections
of other people tolerable by reflecting on his own. What a society would that
be which should be composed of people without charity, without patience,
without condescension! My text doth not inculcate such sentiments as these. The
wise man had met with a great many disagreeable events in society which had
given him a great deal of pain, but, far from being driven out of it, he
continued to reside in the world, and to amend and improve it by his wise
counsel and good example.
3. Sometimes a spirit of discontent produces disgust with the world,
and contempt of life. To hear the people I mean, one would think it was
impossible that this world should be governed by a wise being, because,
forsooth, they are doomed with the rest of mankind to live in a valley of
trouble. But who art thou, thou miserable man, to conceive ideas so false, and
to form opinions so rash!
4. We are sometimes disgusted with the world through an excess of
fondness for the world, and hate life through an over-valuation of it. Man
enters the world as an enchanted place. While the charm lasts, the man I speak
of is in raptures, and thinks he hath found the supreme good. He imagines that
riches have no wings, that splendid fortune hath no reverse, that the great
have no caprice, that friends have no levity, that health and youth are
eternal; but as it is not long before he recovers his senses, he becomes
disgusted with the world in the same proportion as he had been infatuated with
it, and his hatred of life is exactly as extravagant as his love of it had
been.
5. It is not in any of these senses that the wise man saith, “I hated
life.” He would have us understand that the earth hath more thorns than
flowers--that our condition here, though incomparably better than we deserve,
is, however, inadequate to our just and constitutional desires--that our inconveniences
in this life would seem intolerable unless we were wise enough to direct them
to the same end that God proposed by exposing us to suffer them--in a word,
that nothing but hope in a future state formed on another plan can render the
disorders of this world tolerable. So much may serve to explain the meaning of
the wise man.
II. Let us now proceed to justify the sense given. The phantoms that
seduced Solomon during his dissipation may be reduced to two classes. The first
suppose in the dissipated man very little knowledge, and very little taste; and
it is astonishing that a man so eminently endowed with knowledge could set his
heart upon them. The second may more easily impose on an enlightened and
generous mind. I put these into three classes. In the first I put the
advantages of science--in the second the pleasures of friendship--in the third
the privileges, I mean the temporal privileges, of virtue and heroism. I will
endeavour to unmask these three figures, and to prove that the very dispositions
which should contribute most to the pleasure of life, mental abilities,
tenderness of heart, rectitude and delicacy of conscience, are actually
dispositions which contribute most of all to embitter life.
1. If ever possessions could make man happy, Solomon must certainly
have been the happiest of mankind. Imagine the most proper and the most
effectual means of acquiring knowledge, joined to an avidity to obtain it, both
were united in the person of this prince. Now what saith this great man
concerning science? He acknowledgeth indeed that it was preferable to
ignorance, the wise man’s eyes, saith he, are in his head, that is, a man of
education is in possession of some prudential maxims to regulate his life,
whereas an illiterate man walketh in darkness; but yet saith he, “it happeneth
even to me, as it happeneth to the fool, and why was I then wise?”
2. The second disposition, which seems as if it would contribute much
to the pleasure of life, but which often embitters it, is tenderness of heart.
It is clear by the writings of Solomon, and more so by the history of his life,
that his heart was very accessible to this kind of pleasure. How often doth he
write encomiums on faithful friends (Proverbs 17:17; Proverbs 18:24). But where is this friend who sticketh closer than a brother?
Where is this friend who loveth at all times? What an airy phantom is human
friendship!
3. If anything seem capable to render life agreeable, and if anything
in general render it disagreeable, it is rectitude, and delicacy of conscience.
I know Solomon seems here to contradict himself, and the author of the Book of
Proverbs seems to refute the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes. The author of
the Book of Ecclesiastes informs us that virtue is generally useless and
sometimes hurtful in this world; but according to the author of the Book of
Proverbs virtue is most useful in this world. How shall we reconcile these
things? To say, as some do, that the author of Proverbs speaks of the spiritual
rewards of virtue, and the author of Ecclesiastes of the temporal state of it,
is to cut the knot instead of untying it. Of many solutions there is one that
bids fair to remove the difficulty; that is, that when the author of the Book
of Proverbs makes temporal advantages of the rewards of virtue, he speaks of
some rare periods of society, whereas the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes
describes the common general state of things. Perhaps the former refers to the
happy time in which the example of the piety of David being yet recent, and the
prosperity of his successor not having then infected either the heart of the
king or the morals of his subjects, reputation, riches and honours were
bestowed on good men; but the second, probably, speaks of what came to pass
soon after. In the first period life was amiable, and living in the world
delicious; but of the second the wise man saith, “I hated life because the work
that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me.” To which of the two periods
doth the age in which we live belong? Judge by the description given by the
Preacher, as he calls himself. Then mankind were ungrateful, the public did not
remember the benefits conferred on them by individuals, and their services were
unrewarded (Ecclesiastes 9:14-15). Then courtiers mean and ungrateful basely forsook their old
master, and paid their court to the heir apparent (Ecclesiastes 4:15). Then the strong oppressed the weak (Ecclesiastes 4:1). Then the courts of justice were corrupt (Ecclesiastes 3:16). Such is the idea the wise man gives us of the world. Yet these
vain and precarious objects, this world so proper to inspire a rational mind
with disgust, this life so proper to excite hatred in such as know what is
worthy of esteem, this is that` which hath always fascinated, and which yet
continues to fascinate the bulk of mankind. (J. Saurin.)
Life with and
without God
Contrast
this verdict of the Preacher with that calm, clear, victorious utterance of the
great apostle, ringing like a clarion, as he urges the words, “Lay hold on the
life that is life indeed,” and you will have the subject of my sermon--life
without God, and life with God--the misery and disappointment of the one, the
fulness and satisfaction of the other; the one vanity and vexation of spirit,
the other life which is life indeed.
I. Let us look at life without God. Let me frankly acknowledge that
there are some things in life even without God which are pleasant, and
delightful and beautiful. First of all we begin life as “little children, and
to children the next` pleasure is quite enough to make life worth living; their
little hearts are not troubled with the deep problems of life, and God forbid
they should be. And then I do not deny that there is some real satisfaction and
pleasure, as every one knows, in all healthy activity. Then, too, no one can
doubt that there is very much that is very beautiful in human love. Some young
people in the golden days of their early married life, when love is very
beautiful, and real, and fresh, bright as a spring morning, may be tempted to
think that is enough. “We want no other life, this satisfies us.” Now, I admit
of this freely and frankly; but oh, it does not settle the question. The
question comes back, “Does it satisfy?” There are very many indications in this
present day that the world is finding out what this old preacher found out,
that life without God is vanity and vexation of the spirit. Let me just give
you one of them. Have you ever noticed the very remarkable fact that much of
our higher poetry is unutterably sad? Take, for example, the poems of Matthew
Arnold: they are Greek
in perfection of form and in their faultless beauty, but how sad they are! That
deep sadness that lay over the world of which he so pathetically sings broods
like a cloud over his own poetry. And when you come to examine the reason why
he so depresses you, the answer is because there is no living personal God in
it--it is the loss of God which explains it all. Do not misunderstand me. I am
not imagining that life is to be lived solely with religious aims and religious
objects. I do not take a narrow view, I trust, of human life. God has given us
various and ample powers, and each one of them has to find its own appropriate
satisfaction. I do not condemn any of the generous ambitions of youth. I would
not oven forbid the loss noble ambitions of life so long as they are kept
subordinate to the will of God. Let a man earn knowledge or fame, or
distinction, or wealth, or influence, and if he earn them honestly, well; but I
do desire to impress upon you this one lesson--that it does not matter what the
end you set before yourselves in life may be, whether it be pleasure, or
intellectual eminence, or wealth, if you leave God out it will so disappoint
you, miserably disappoint you, and you will have a time, in your own
experience, when you will turn from it with the muttered curse, “All is vanity
and vexation of spirit.”
II. Let us ask what life with God means. “Lay hold on the life which
is life indeed.” Shall I tell you what it is? “This is life eternal to know
Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” Those are the
words of Jesus: that is Christ’s own definition of the life indeed--to know
God, the true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He hath sent. No man requires
demonstration that this is life indeed. It needs none: the mere statement of
the truth is its proof. If there be an eternal and infinite God on whom I
depend for all things, if He has created me and loves me with unspeakable love,
if He has spent all the riches of His love to redeem me from sin, if I am to
live with Him through eternity a life removed from all the conditions of time
and space--then, of all the self-evident propositions you can put into words,
this is the most self-evident and certain, that I am created and redeemed
solely to find my life in God, I am too great to find my life in anything less
than God. Ah, “He that hath the Son hath life, he that hath not the Son hath
not life.” This is the life indeed. And now you see the meaning of what we are
so apt to call the mystery of sorrow, the mystery of pain. The other day I was
reading the diary of a life which in many respects is most instructive and pathetic. It was the
story of a man who had had unusual prosperity, and in looking through this
diary I came across these words: “God has broken silence with me.” Great
crushing sorrow had fallen on him, and that man who had lived many years in the
sunshine of prosperity without God, without ever speaking of God or hearing God
speaking to him, suddenly in the darkness awoke to the fact that God was near
to him, and that God had come to him in the great trouble of his life; and then
he wrote these words, “God has broken silence with me.” Ah, life indeed! That
is its designation. I do not say it will not have its troubles, its
disappointments, perhaps even its failures; but the troubles and
disappointments of that life as little affect it as the storms that sweep
across the Atlantic touch the deep Calm of the ocean beneath. It is life
indeed! Nothing disturbs its central peace, for it is founded upon God. And
then, when the end comes--as it will come to us all--and friends stand round
the bed, and the last farewells are spoken, and the eyes are closed in death,
and we make the last journey to that “bourne from which no traveller returns,”
and our feet touch the waters of the cold river--in that supreme and awful hour
will the life indeed fill us then? Listen! The man who wrote these words, “Lay
hold of the life which is life indeed,” tells us what he felt on the verge of
eternity: “I am now ready to be offered.” (G. S. Barrett, D. D.)
Verse 18-19
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.
The dirge of the dead hand
Solomon’s life was
complete from the naturalistic standpoint. He sought pleasure with a zest we
should condemn as licence nowadays, but which the spirit of those times was
accustomed to count lawful, at least for kings. And more than that, he gave
himself to great and imposing enterprises, diligently seeking the welfare of
his people as well as his own personal and family aggrandizement. And yet work
upon an unspiritual plane of ideas could not altogether satisfy him. He had an
unhappy forecast of pending changes, for Rehoboam was not an ideal youth. He
already seems to be hearing the cry, “The king is dead: long live the king!”
And how sick at heart he feels as all the signs seem to show that the new king
will be an iconoclast, a reactionary, a fool, or at least a man who does not
think in the same groove as his predecessor! But this heartsick pessimism, like
the same temper everywhere, was misjudging. That which was ignoble in his work
perished, and deserved to perish. His heart-ache, as he thought of how much in
the schemes he had tried to carry out would be altered by his successors, was
relevant only to the lower ranges of his work. But the royal preacher was
thinking not so much of his work as of himself. He wanted to invest his own
dead hand with perpetual power; but that is not permitted to the best of the
children of men in this lament we can find traces of self-idolatry, and
self-idolatry is allied with contempt of our fellows and disbelief of the
living God.
I. This
temper represents the mood of one who is doing much of his work under the unwholesome
stimulus of pride and ambition. Why should even Solomon flatter himself that
all his works were so perfect that they were beyond the need of modification
and readjustment? There were wise men before him, and wise men were destined to
come after him, and he had contemporaries who, if not equalling him in the
range of his knowledge, had at least kept themselves from plunging into the
same abysses of folly and self-indulgence; and yet the great king was under the
impression that he was probably the last of the sages, and that the
distinguished race would vanish at his own funeral. We know now how groundless
his assumption was; for in every age the world has had in it men whose gifts,
acquisitions, and practical sagacity have far outmatched those of this
much-bepraised king, who was sybarite as well as sage, and who, through
untempered success, over-deep draughts of intoxicating flattery, and
polygamistic animalism, was spoiled into an ignoble old age. The man who looks
upon life from Solomon’s standpoint has obviously set his heart upon achieving
what will be an enduring monument of his own reputation, and, like the
Pyramids, which defend nothing, shelter nothing, protect nothing, teach
nothing, will immortalize, in an indestructible edifice of colossal barrenness,
the faded empire of a royal mummy. The vain man wants to do something that will
be sacred from the hands of the would-be reformer, or it will be no true
tribute to his infallibility. Why should posterity, out of mere respect for us,
refrain from trying to improve upon our work? Men are sent into the world in
ever fresh tides of young hope and vitality to help the common good of the
race, and not to be our minions and satellites. Others may succeed in
cultivating finer blooms to put into our gardens, trees of nobler stature to
adorn our parks, herbs of more medicinal virtue to plant in our fields: in
substituting rarer and more translucent stones for the crude add unwrought
material with which we reared temples and palaces.
II. This
utterance implied an ungracious disdain of the men who were shortly to step
into power. Of all men in the world Solomon ought not to have been hard upon
the fools. He had not uniformly set the wisest example in his own person, and
the luxurious harems he had acclimatized upon Jewish soil were not likely to be
schools of the sublimest philosophy and breeding-places of the most stalwart
virtue. And in a lukewarm and unspiritual state of society an evil prophecy of
this sort always tends to fulfil itself. Not to trust those who are around us,
and who expect to take up our work, is just the way to corrupt and demoralize
them. The effect is the same as that produced by the suspicious head of a
household who keeps every cheap trifle under lock and key. The mistrust of
posterity is, perhaps, a meaner and a more wicked thing than the mistrust of
our contemporaries, for posterity cannot speak for itself and lift up its voice
in protest against this unjust and wholesale condemnation. We do our utmost to
imperil our own work, when we assume that no one will be fit to carry it on
after the sceptre has fallen from our lifeless grasp.
III. This
temper of soul implies a gloomy view of the future of the human race. The wise
man lacked faith in humanity and its unknown possibilities, lacked that faith
which it was the specific intention of the promise made to his forefathers to
produce. To his own complacent estimate it seemed that the race had touched the
high-water mark of intelligence and character in himself, and that now the
inevitable decline must begin. How lure, riot in faith to Samuel, and Elijah,
and Elisha, who nurtured schools for the future prophets, and who, in spite of
the stern work they had to do, turned an undespairing outlook upon the future.
Jesus and His apostles expected unbroken files of sowers and reapers to
co-operate with each other and to carry on the victorious work of the kingdom
to the end of time. The Church could not fail, although the gates of hell might
send forth red-hot torrents of rage and opposition; and the lineage of godly
and discerning workers would never be cut off root and branch, like the house
of Eli. If we think, and speak, and act as though future workers would spring
up and worthily carry on our modest beginnings, unborn and ungrown generations will
respond to our confidence, and we shall not lack men to stand before the Lord
in our room for ever. The man is both an atheist and a hater of his kind who
asserts that the world is moving backward into the abyss of barbarism and
folly.
IV. This
temper indicates a deep and ominous lack of religious faith. He who speaks in
any such strain has for the time being lost faith in the providential
sovereignty of God. There is a touch of Manichaeism in this heartsick
pessimism. It sees a mere Puck installed over the universe and clothed with
infinite attributes, satisfying his soul with mischief, and encouraging the
fools who make havoc with the achievements of the wise. All such vapourings
show that there is a heathen or an infidel half in our personalities, sadly
needing to be exorcised so that we may become sane, and useful, and happy men.
Faith in God is one with the gift of prophecy; and if this royal preacher had
always stirred up the gift which was in him, he would have felt how all that
was best in his work would be preserved through apparent decline and reaction,
till at last one wiser and greater than Solomon had appeared, to gather up into
His plans all the true and unselfish work of the past, and to fulfil the fair
and holy dreams of the world’s ardent youth.
V. This
unhappy, corrosive temper may eat into our hearts, not so much because we
repudiate the doctrine of God’s providential sovereignty, but because we are
not living and working in high harmony with His counsels. In catering so
lavishly for his own lusts and luxuries, this king was doing his own will and
work, rather than God’s, and it may have been the appointed penalty of his
ornate selfishness that fools should make havoc of his accomplished dreams just
as soon as he had passed away. He speaks of parks, pleasure gardens, fountains,
artificial lakes, palace orchestras, fortune making, personal enrichment,
material aggression. It is true there was a point at which he became patriotic,
and sought his people’s prosperity; but that seems to have been his second
thought rather than his first. And this policy of self-aggrandize-ment was
identified with foreign marriages and heathen coalitions, which had such a
demoralizing effect upon his own successors and the nation at large, and which
prepared the way for the schisms and tragic apostasies of the coming times. If
we cherish no higher views of life, we cannot fairly count upon the good
offices of Divine Providence in protecting our enterprise from the pranks of
fools. What right has that man to look for the enduring blessing of God who
chooses his tasks in selfishness and pride? Let our work be holy, unselfish,
spiritual, and God will accept it as a sacrifice for Himself, and preserve it
in the unknown future from violation; for the sons of light, seen by the seer
of Patmos, who compass the divine altar in heaven, hover in their strong
ministries about every altar upon earth where lies the accepted oblation of
unselfish toil. (Thomas G. Selby.)
Verses 24-26
There is nothing better
for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul
enjoy good in his labour.
The simple joys of Godly
industry
We are not to regard these
words as at all akin to the utterance of the baser Epieureanism, “Let us eat
and drink, for to-morrow we die!” We are not to suppose that the Jewish
philosopher, looking around him, and finding all to be “vanity and feeding on
wind,” concludes that the best thing a man can do, under the circumstances, is
to give himself up to a life of sensuous enjoyment. This cannot possibly be his
meaning here; for he has already shown the emptiness of a life of sensuous
gratification, and he has also recorded it as his conviction that “wisdom is
better than folly.” Moreover, the words themselves do not point to mere idle
self-indulgence; for they speak of a man’s “enjoying good in his labour.”
Ecclesiastes seems to have before his mind a life in which hearty and honest
toil is blended with a contented enjoyment of the fruits of toil. In the maxim,
“Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,” eating and drinking stand for all
kinds of sensuous gratification, and even of sensual excess. But here, to “eat
and drink” seems to stand rather for the simpler forms of living, as contrasted
with luxurious and excessive self-indulgence. That this is the meaning of
Ecclesiastes here is further evident from the manner in which he goes on to
speak of the conditions of this contented and cheerful enjoyment of life. “This
also I saw, that it is from the hand of God.” This introduction of the thought
of God is itself sufficient to show that Ecclesiastes is not here speaking as a
sensualist, or as a mere pleasure-seeker. Amidst the many anomalies of life, Ecclesiastes
clings to the assurance that there is a moral government of God in this world.
There are indeed perplexing problems in relation to this moral government,
which he felt he could not solve, and which led him to look forward to a world
beyond death where the dealings of God with men would be completed and
vindicated. But still, looking at the broad facts of human life, and excluding
cases apparently exceptional and perplexing, he saw that God does make a
distinction, even here and now, between the “sinner” and the “man who pleaseth
Him.” The virtuous and godly man has an advantage, even in this world, over the
wicked. He receives from God a “wisdom and knowledge” which are associated with
“joy.” He finds a pleasure in his work, and is contented to eat the simple
fruits of his toil. He may be a poor man, labouring for daily bread; and yet he
may receive from God this gift of thankful enjoyment. Whereas, on the other
hand, Ecclesiastes saw that the “sinner”--the man who has no thought of God’s
commandments--may “gather together” and “heap up” riches, and yet have no heart
to enjoy his own wealth. Now, the lesson which Ecclesiastes here sets before us
is one of which we all need to be continually reminded. Patent as the fact may
be to us that the higher happiness of life is far more closely associated with
unanxious labour, simple habits, and cheerful contentment, than with wealth or
luxury, we are all more or less apt to live in forgetfulness of it. The social
atmosphere which we breathe is too feverish and restless. We are apt to lose
the blessings of to-day through over-anxiety about the morrow. We are apt to
miss the enjoyment which God has put for us into the simple, common blessings
of life, through our eager pursuit of something more which may not really be
anything better. It might be a desirable thing for some men who are spoiling
their lives through selfish ambition or sordid Mammonism, to sit for a little
while even at the feet of Epicurus! But far better for all of us to sit at the
feet of Christ. All that was really true and valuable in the higher
Epieureanism is to be found, in a more exalted form, in Christianity. It does
not bid us proudly trample on either pleasure or pain; but it bids us cultivate
an inner peace and strength which shall prevent us from becoming the mere
victims and slaves of circumstance. Without despising any “creature of God,” it
nevertheless teaches us to estimate things according to their relative
importance. And if only our hearts were set more steadfastly on higher things,
if only we were more bent on “pleasing God,” we would be the better able to
“eat and drink and enjoy good in our labour”--to enjoy with a more serene and
contented spirit the simple, ordinary blessings which are common to humanity. (T.
C. Finlaysen.)
Verse 26
For God giveth to a man that is good in His sight.
True goodness
I. He who is good
before God is good.
1. A man may be good in his own esteem, and yet not be really so. The
way in which we sometimes mistake ourselves is altogether pitiable.
2. A man may be good in the estimate of society, and yet not be
really so. Dr. Bushnell relates how he was much struck by the remark of an
elderly gentleman touching hero-worship: “From the moment of my leaving college
to this present hour I have been gradually losing my respect for great names.”
3. A man may be accepted as good by the Church, and yet not be really
so. The diamond fields of South Africa produce large numbers of diamonds whose
yellow colour lessens immensely the value of the gem, and rogues have hit on an
ingenious method for the falsification of these jewels; they are put into some
chemical solution, and for a while after the bath the yellow diamond appears
perfectly white, deceiving the very elect. Character also is capable of
falsification; we may appear to ourselves and to others brighter and costlier
than we intrinsically are.
4. But they who are good before God are good. He who has the
testimony that he pleases God needs no more.
II. Who is thus
good before God? Who is this man, this woman, this child? The goodness that is
good before God is the goodness that God inspires, and that He maintains in our
heart and life by His Holy Spirit. Whatever is truly good is made so by its
motive, its principle, its aim; and he who is truly good acts from the purest
motive, obeys the loftiest rule, aspires to the supremest end. Well then, the
purest motive is the love of God; the loftiest rule is the will of God; the supremest
end is the glory of God. In a word, the essence of goodness is godliness; and
where there is no godliness there is no goodness in the deep scriptural
signification of that word. But the goodness that comes from God, that lives
through Him, that gives, acts, suffers, hopes for His name’s sake--that is
goodness indeed. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Wisdom, and knowledge, and
joy.--
Joy in religion
I wish to call your attention to the last gift here
mentioned--joy. To have goodness is by many supposed to inherit grief in
proportion. The bestowment of wisdom and knowledge is considered to carry with
it the addition of many troubles. The text tells us that God gives to those who
have found favour in His sight “wisdom and knowledge”--“joy,” or the sense of
enjoyment, the pleasant appreciation of the delights of true wisdom and
knowledge, is added to counteract and enliven the weariness and depression
which ever accompany the possession of great learning. Joy comes after, not
before, wisdom and knowledge--as we have it in the text. It is the rapturous
outcome of acquired wisdom--the balance given, the beauty bestowed, the relish
awarded to dissipate the despondent gloom which is too often the result of
mental activity. Now, what is true in secular things is clearly and even more
true in spiritual matters. When Christ is made to us wisdom and true knowledge
He gives the soul joy--His joy; and the real Christian not only rejoices in the
Lord, but he will rejoice in every good thing which the Lord his God hath given
unto him. He will have a joyous, buoyant, glad nature, exulting in God’s
favour, and opening his mouth to sing and laugh and be merry; and in this and
other ways he will strive to show forth his Lord’s praises before the world.
There are some who are wont to urge that the Christian believer must
necessarily, from the condition of things, be a shrinking, grave, and even
melancholy being; that in bearing, and cast of countenance, and conduct he must
be the very reverse of a joyous, light-hearted, laughter-loving creature of the
world. With his own sins, past and present, to mourn over, the ever-recurring
shortcomings of duty, the never-ending slips of temper, the coldness of feeling
and the too slow approach of the new life to the fixed standard of that
perfection which is the Father’s in heaven, how can that man, it is often
asked, be otherwise than tearful in word and look? Truly this is all wrong,
producing results of a most painful kind, and life runs with slow, unvaried,
saddening sound, till all presented to the eye or ear fills the lone soul with
misery, and grief, and fear. I believe that this is a true picture of some who,
being morbidly and ghastly grief-struck by some deep and immedieable wound, are
ever looking with melancholy eyes upon the night side of things until the sense
of present evils never ceases to annoy them. Fretful, feverish, gloomy,
excusing nothing and accusing every one, the tired brain never gets relief from
the heavy heart. Now this ought not so to be in the Christian character, and
when they exist the most strenuous exertions ought to be made, the most
determined efforts of the will, to get rid of them. He who made us made us
capable of joy. It is a holy necessity of man’s nature. If God had meant us to
be always grave, and serious, and down-looking, lie might have constituted us
so that we could have been nothing else: lie would not have chosen as the
emblem and image of His chiefest blessing, even the blessing of redeeming love,
the glad symbol of the festive scene, that His Son would give us “beauty for
ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of
heaviness.” The truly Christian mind, filled with the love of the Saviour, will
sanctify everything lawful by the presence of a holy, kindly feeling, and will
derive benefit from such allowance, consciously or unconsciously. But the
indulgence of our susceptibilities to pleasurable impressions is itself an end
which, in due mode and measure, Christian men may seek and the happy God of
love not disapprove. God giveth joy. He not only re-bestows the gift in Christ,
but He made us originally susceptible of the keenest enjoyment. The gift is to
be cherished; the susceptibility is to be encouraged and strengthened; but it
is most important that a cheerful and chastened exercise of the gift should
vindicate the joyfulness of saints, and present a safe and suitable example to
the world. One of the strongest prejudices felt against religion is because of
its supposed gloomy character. Those who are destitute of a religious spirit
can find little or no enjoyment in religious occupation, and are naturally
disposed to think that others must be like themselves. It has been too often
the fault or the misfortune of Christians to confirm this erroneous impression;
and it behoves them, by every lawful method, to endeavour to remove it. If we
are Christ’s, let us pray and strive that our religion may be one of
sunshine--a religion of happiness, a rejoicing religion. (G. H. Conner, M.
A.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》