;.,.-' z*^. i ' • ■■■■■A' .-■ 'i 'f-h-\:.'-:''^^ •^ ■ . ; :-f: ■:' ./, .-'0 ■ ^ I. IB T h e o lo gic PRiNC C'/.-v .SA^// Bouk RA^RY a 1 Seminary. NCETON, N. J. Divis,or3S.I.4.7S.., Sectioi No,... U^^'J ' THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES. THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES ITS MEANING AND ITS LESSONS. ROBERT BUCHANAN, D.D., AUTHOR OF "THE TEN YEAJRS' CONFLICT," "A CLERICAL FURLOUGH IN THE HOLY LAND," ETC., ETC. pi ® ^I ng^ LONDON: BLACKIE AND SON, WAEWICK SQUARE, E.G.; AND GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH. MDCCCLIX. GLASGOW : 0. BLACKIE AND CO., PRINTERS, VILLAFIELD. PREFACE. The twofold object of this volume is sufficiently indicated by its title. The Author has used his best endeavours to ascertain, in every instance, the true meaning of the text; but in setting forth the grounds on which he has ventured, in any case, to differ from the generally received inter- pretation, he has contented hhnself with a reference to those considerations, which admit of being made easily intelligible to the ordinary reader. The materials of which the volume is composed were originally prepared for, and used in, the pulpit, where minute criticism or philological discussion would have been entkely out of place. In now giving them, with very great deference, to the Press, the changes he has made, though considerable, are chiefly such as belong to the form, rather than to the substance of the Work. Discourses addressed to a congregation are necessarily of a somewhat uniform length, and often, in consequence, interrupt injuriously, though unavoidably, the continuity VI PREFACE. of the exposition. The Author has, accordingly, availed himself of the greater freedom which a book affords, of escaping from these trammels. By adopting the more elastic arrangement of chapters, he has sought to pre- serve, and to exhibit, the identity of the various branches of the great subject of which Ecclesiastes treats; and thus, perhaps, to present more clearly, the general struc- ture and scope of this part of the sacred volume. That, in an age of engrossing worldliness, and of multiplied earthly allurements, it may be blessed to pro- mote the cultivation of that wisdom which cometh from above, and of that spirituality of mind which is life and peace, is the Author's chiefest wish and most earnest prayer in now sending it forth. Glasgow, November 7, 1859. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE BOOK AND ITS AUTHOR. ECCLES. I. 1. PAGE This world and its modern votaries — Ecclesiastes, a book for the times — Its author, Solomon — The piety of his early youth — The fame of his wisdom — His departure from God — The design of the book, ... 9-21 CHAPTER II. THE PREACHER, HIS TEXT, AND THE EXORDIUM OF HIS DISCOURSE. EcCLES. I. 2-11. The subject opened — The Preacher's point of view — His text and its true meaning — Illustrations, from material nature and from human life, in support of his great argument, ... ... ... ... 22-35 CHAPTER III. THE STORY OF THE PREACHER'S LIFE. EccLES. I. 12-18; ii. 1-11. The Preacher — Who he is — The great promise of his youth — His fall and the theory of it — How he lived in the days of his folly — His proud aims — His disappointments — His fruitless toil — Becomes a man of pleasure — Tries to combine wisdom with folly — His great public works — Splendour of his court — His carnal enthusiasm — A case in contrast to Solomon's — His many imitators, ... ... ... 36-64 CHAPTER IV. THE PREACHER REVIEWS HIS ERRING CAREER. EccLES. II. 12-26. A retrospect — Wisdom and folly compared — Wisdom excelleth folly — Defectiveness of human wisdom — Solomon's querulousness on this account — Feels what a vanity is mere worldly fame — Grows sick of life — Is rendered gloomy by the uncertainties of the future — A fool may be the wise man's heir — Solomon has now come to see the right place and use of worldly things — The godly alone know how to use this world, ' 65-91 via CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. OUR TIMES ARE IN THE HAND OF GOD. ECCLES. III. 1-8. PAGE Solomon now speaks as a spiritual man — Recognizes the great fact that all things are of God — The times and seasons are fixed by Him — All events are under His control — The right improvement to be made of this doctrine, under all the vicissitudes of life, ... 92-lOG CHAPTER YI. THE BANE AND THE ANTIDOTE. EcCLES. III. 9-22. The beauty of God's plan — WTiat hinders men from seeing it — The near hides the remote — God's plan is perfect and cannot be altered — Trials and disappointments ought not to discourage His people — The existence of present evils ought not to disquiet them — God shall judge both the righteous and the wicked — Justice shall ultimately tri- umph — Solomon prays that worldly men might be made to see their end — The awful issues of life and the true source of peace, 107-135 CHAPTER VII. EVILS AND FOLLIES. EcCLES. IV. 1-8. Solomon considers all the oppressions that are done under the sun — ^The misery of the sufferers when destitute of Divine support — The fact of being liable to such evils should wean men from the world — Those that would do good must not look for their reward here — How the fool reasons on this subject — The folly of amassing and hoarding wealth — The miseraijle fi-uits of avarice only equalled by those of that prodigality which is the vice of the present age, ... ... 136-149 CHAPTER VIII. DEEP THOUGHTS AND WISE COUNSELS. EccLES. IV. 9-16; v. 1-12. The isolation of the miser contrasted with the happiness of those who live for and with one another — Two are better than one — This truth expounded and illustrated — The bond of perfectness — The value of wisdom — A poor and wise child better than an old and foolish king CONTENTS. IX PAGE — The vanity of worldly greatness — The fickleness of the crowd — Goodness, not greatness, the thing to be desired — Counsels of wis- dom on the subject of divine worship — The right frame of mind — ^The fit utterance for God's presence — What the lips vow the life must pay — The danger of rash and gratuitous vows — God is not mocked — The retributions of Providence — Counsels of wisdom on the subject of riches — Eiches cannot satisfy — It cannot exempt its possessor from evils and sufferings — Those that have it never think they have enough — Others consume what the rich man toils to acquire — Riches begets anxiety — Lays snares for the soul — The profit of the earth is for all — The lesson this fact should teach, ... ... ... ... 150-190 CHAPTER IX. BROKEN CISTERNS. Ec. V. 13-20; VI. 1-12. Additional examples of the folly of those who set their hearts on riches — Its injurious influence on the minds and habits of those who know they are to inherit it — Trials connected with wealth — The heir may never come to possess it — If he does, he must leave it all behind him when he dies — It will be a witness against him in the day of judg- ment in so far as he has abused it — To use this talent aright is the gift of God — The happiness flowing therefrom — The misery of those who possess riches but cannot take the good of it — How this may happen — Various examples — Their life as great a vanity as an untimely birth — The rich and the poor go to one place — Thoughts of wisdom as to the folly of seeking happiness in any carnal indulgence — Appe- tite is insatiable — Man's original name — The humbling views it sug- gests — The dependence on God which it implies — The lesson which all these things should teach, 191-220 CHAPTER X. HARD BUT TRUE SAYINGS. ECCLES. VII. 1-10. Concerning a good name — Concerning the day of one's death— Concern- ing the house of mourning — Concerning sorrow — Concerning the rebuke of the wise — Concerning gifts — Concerning the end of a thing — Concerning patience and anger — Concerning the supposed superiority of former days— xV modern instance, 221-249 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. PRAISES AND FRUITS OF WISDOM. ECCLES. VII. 11-29. PAGE Wisdom and wealth compared — Superiority of wisdom — It giveth life — It sees God's hands in all things — It knows how to improve both prosperity and adversity — It sees that God's way is perfect — The world's wisdom and its compromising spirit condemned by the wisdom of God — This wisdom makes the weak strong — It teaches patience and forbearance under misrepresentations and wrongs — This wisdom belongs in perfection to God alone, and is unsearchable by man — Wisdom's judgment as to the wickedness of the woman whose heart is snares and nets— The true import and application of that stern judgment, 250-280 CHAPTER XII. THE DOCTRINE OF WISDOM AS TO RULERS AND SUBJECTS. EcCLES. VIII. 1-8. Wisdom exalts and enlightens — It makes its possessor a true king of men — Examples — The counsels of wisdom as to civil obedience — Limits of the ruler's authority — Examples — Within these limits obe- dience due for conscience sake — Nature of the supremacy ascribed to earthly rulers — An appeal from it lies to the Lord of all — In seeking the redress of civil wrongs wisdom has respect to time and judgment — Esther's case — Importance of this rule — Death is coming and will svunraon rulers and subjects alike before the tribunal of God — Wickedness cannot ultimately prevail, 281-302 CHAPTER XIII. VERILY THERE IS A GOD THAT JUDGETH IN THE EARTH. EccLES. vni. 9-17. Solomon's wise counsels founded on experience — Had seen the wicked rule over others to their own hurt — The statement illustrated by the case of slavery — How Providence thus avenges the wrongs of the oppressed — The oppressor passes away and is forgotten — It shall be well with them that fear God — A plausible objection to this doctrine considered and answered — Illustrative cases — Solomon's earnestness in studying this profound subject — The mysteries of providence — They are meant to try the faith and patience of God's people, ... 303-321 CONTENTS. Xi CHAPTER XIY. THE APPARENT INDIFFERENCE OF PROVIDENCE TO THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE EVIL AND THE GOOD, AND THE ANSWER TO THIS DIF- FICULTY. ECCLES. IX. 1-10. PAGE All things come alike to all — The statement examined — The sense and extent in which it holds true— Godliness is profitable to all things notwithstanding — It is not here that God issues and executes His final awards — How men abuse His long-suffering patience — They indulge the evil and madness of their hearts — But after that they go to the dead — Their condition there — What Scripture teaches as to the intermediate state — There is hope for even the wicked while they live — There is none in the grave— The lesson taught by these truths — Let the godly be of good cheer, and let them work while it is day, 322-343 CHAPTER XV. THE ISSUE OF EVENTS IS OFTEN UNCERTAIN, BUT WISDOM IS ALWAYS A SURE GUIDE. EcCLES. IX. 11-18. The uncertainties of life — The race not to the swift — The fairest pros- pects often blighted, and the fondest hopes crushed — What is meant by the saying that time and chance happeneth to them all — Solomon's illustrations of it — The lesson conveyed — The poor wise man who delivered the city an example of the worth of wisdom and of the world's ingratitude — Our cities and their true enemies — Who are the poor wise men that bring deliverance — How little the world esteems them — Their reward is sure — The destructive power of even one sin- ner contrasted with the blessed influence of even one saint, ... 344-362 CHAPTER XVI. FOLLY CONTRASTED WITH WISDOM. EcCLES. X. 1-20. The fly in the ointment — Folly is the dead fly — Folly is always unpre- pared — It betrays itself — It irritates, while wisdom soothes — The mis- chiefs to which folly prompts rulers — How folly brings its own punishment — The bearing of these facts on Solomon's great argument — The fool's words contrasted with those of the wise — The fool knoweth not how to go to the city — An awful sense in which this is Xll CONTENTS. PAGE true — A foolish and a wise king contrasted — Slotbfulness is folly — The practical fruits respectively of folly and wisdom, ... ... 363-390 CHAPTER XVII. WORKS OF FAITH AND LABOURS OF LOVE. ECCLES. XI. 1-6. Bread cast upon the waters — The meaning of the expression — The argu- ments for exercising this love and faith — The reward is sure — The duty is taught by natm-e itself — Danger of neglecting or delaying it — The season is passing away — Folly of doubting and hesitating in such a case — Reasons for being prompt and diligent in doing good — Application of the subject to heavenly things, ... ... ... 391-406 CHAPTER XVIII. AN EXHORTATION TO CULTIVATE EARLY PIETY. EccLES. XI. 7-10; XII. 1-8. The seductive sweetness of the world's pleasures — The vanity of a life devoted to them — The days of darkness that must follow it — Solo- mon's consequent appeal to the young — His entreaty — His counsel — His warning to flee from the wrath to come — Pictures the decay and helplessness of the worldling's old age — The falling house — The broken fountain — Dust returns to dust — The spirit to God — Over such a life the Preacher writes, Vanity of vanities, ... ... 407-421 CHAPTER XIX. THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER. EcCLES. XII. 9-14. Solomon as a teacher of the people — His earnestness and assiduity — His care and diligence in providing suitable instiniction — The pains he took to find acceptable words — Inspiration did not supersede the exercise of his own powers— The lessons taught by his example — The force of divine truth — Its words as goads and nails fastened — The masters of assemblies, who they are, and who is the one Shepherd that gives them — The sum of the whole book : Man's chief end is to glorify God, 422-435 EOOLESIASTES. CHAPTEE I. THE BOOK AND ITS AUTHOE. "The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king of Jerusalem."— EccLES. i. 1. IN such an age as the present, the study of this book would seem to be peculiarly appropriate. Never, perhaps, at any former period did this world hold out so many allurements to fascinate the minds of men, and to draw their hearts away from God. The achievements of science and the wonders of art have combined to invest material and earthly things with a thousand charms unknown in simpler and ruder times. A high civiliza- tion has so gilded over the outside of things, as to have imparted a certain brilliancy to the whole condition and arrangements of modern society. The vast increase and the great diffusion of wealth have immensely multiplied the sources of mere mundane enjoyment. The progress of geographical discovery, the con- quests of military power, and the energy of commercial enter- prise, have brought the entire globe under the dominion of man, and placed the endless store of its treasures at his feet. Possessed of such resources as these, there is no undertaking on which he is afraid to enter, or whose difficulties he cannot find means to overcome. The most subtle of the elements of 1 10 INTRODUCTION. nature have become liis obedient servants. He rnslies to and fro in pursuit of his business or his pleasure Avith the speed of the winds; and his winged words dart through the seas and flash across the breadth of mighty continents as swiftly as the very lightnings of heaven. In the midst of all these marvels — so flattering to human pride — man is in no small danger of be- coming his own god, and of making this earth his heaven. "With so many terrestrial fields of contemplation in which to expatiate — with so much among the things that are seen and temporal to occupy his time, to gratify his taste, to satisfy all the desires of the carnal heart — he finds it only too easy to persuade himself that he can do without those things which are unseen and eternal. Nor can it be doubted by any thoughtful observer, that the state of things now described is exerting, at this moment, a most powerful and perilous influence among all ranks and classes of men. It takes them up, as Satan took our Lord, to the summit of an high mountain, and shows them so bright a prospect on every hand, that this world would seem to have a satisfying portion for them all, if only they will fall down and worship the creature instead of the great and glori- ous Creator. And, alas ! with what countless multitudes the temptation prevails ! That happiness which it is the instinct of their nature to seek, they think themselves sure of finding some- where or other in so fair and inviting a scene. The men who are hasting to be rich are allured by those many dazzling schemes which promise to make their fortune in a day. The more sober and calculating votaries of mammon pursue with increased avidity those numerous avenues to wealth, opened up by the prodigious energy and the far-reaching commerce which characterize the age in which we live. The lovers of pleasure, whether in its more refined or in its grosser forms, if they miss the oT)ject of their search in one of those gay capitals which the facilities of modern travel make it so easy to reach, assure themselves of grasping it in another; while the aspi- rants after a higher kind of enjoyment — those who long for THIS WORLD AND ITS MODERN VOTARIES. 11 fame in some distinguished professional career, or whose delight is found in cultivating an acquaintance with the discoveries of science, or the works of art, or the speculations of philosophy, or the charms of literature — appear equally certain of success, in whicliever of these attractive employments their peculiar bent of mind may incline them to engage. That amazing intel- lectual activity, which is one of the most remarkable features of our time, has provided something suitable for them all. In a word, it would seem as if, at last, the world that now is had succeeded in securing happiness for man, and as if he might now safely dispense with those aids of religion, and with those spiritual hopes and consolations that are associated with the world to come. It is well known, indeed, that among certain savans — the would-be wise men of the day — men whose towering self-com- placency persuades them that they are at the head of the age — there are those who openly proclaim that the period of religious belief was simply the childhood or nonage of the world, from which it has now emerged into the man- hood of philosophy, when God and His Christ, and hell and heaven are to be all set aside, as ideas unsuited to the pro- gress of modern times. But what is more, perhaps, to our present purpose is the fact, that, far and wide, beyond the circle in which these bold blasphemies of infidelity and atheism are uttered and embraced, there is a spirit abroad, which, though in words it may confess God, does yet in deeds deny Him — a spirit of engrossing worldliness — a spirit that sees nothing, and thinks of nothing, but the things which are beneath — a spirit that, amid the cares of this life, and the deceitfiilness of riches, and the lusts of other things, loses sight of eternity and of the in- terests of the undying soul. We know of nothing better fitted, under the divine blessing, to operate as an antidote to this earthly and sensual spirit, than the devout study of this parti- cular portion of the Word of God. As its inspired author him- self has said, " The thing which hath been, it is that which 12 INTRODUCTION. shall be." No man ever drank deeper than he of the spirit now- spoken of. Obedient to its impulse, he ran the whole round of worldly pui'suits and pleasures; and here we have set before us the results of an experience unsurpassed in fulness and variety since the world be^an, as to what created things can do as a substitute to man for the favour and the fellowship of God. And if it be so, that we are living at a period of the world's history when the same desire to seek happiness among the things of sense and time is not only extensively abroad, but is fed and stimulated by all those multiplied worldly fascina- tions which belong to modern times, it cannot be otherwise than salutary that we should give good heed to the words on this subject "of the Preacher, the son of David, king of Jerusalem." In entering on the exposition of this book — which we do with a very profound sense of the many difficulties its inter- pretation involves — it is natural to begin by making some refer- ence to its author, to the period and the circumstances of his life in w4iich, under the guidance of God's Holy Spirit, it w^as written, and to the main design which it appears to have in view. It certainly does seem strange that there should ever have been a question among critics or commentators, as to the authorship of this portion of Scripture. Such, however, is the fact. There have been Rabbis and Talmudists among the Jews, and learned men in the Christian church, who contrived to persuade tliemselves and tried to persuade others that, not Solomon, but some one else, must have written this book. The circumstance seems only to prove that there is no point, how- ever plain, about which the j^erversity of the human mind will not find means to raise a dispute. It were both tedious and un- profitable to go into a discussion which has never for a moment shaken the conviction of the Churcli, that "the words of the Preacher" are the words of Solomon. Although his name is not expressly inscribed upon the book, even he who runs may read that name in many allusions which most unequivocally THE PIETY OF SOLOMON'S YOUTH. 13 proclaim it. The writer himself tells us that he was "the son of David, and king over Israel in Jerusalem" (i. 1, 12); and furthermore, in various passages he describes himself in terms which, as flxce answereth to face in a glass, present the very- picture of that remarkable man who stands out on the page of Scripture history as at once the wisest and the most splendid of Israel's kings. As regards the period and circumstances in the life of Solo- mon in which this book was written, it contains within itself internal evidence of the fact that it was written near the close of its inspired author's career, and after divine grace had raised him up from his grievous fall, and restored him once more to the fear, the love, and the service of God. In his earlier years, as is well known, he was eminent for his piety. Even from his birth it is testified that " the Lord loved him," in token of which He sent the prophet Nathan to give him the significant name of Jedidiah — that is, " Beloved of the Lord." When, still young and tender, he succeeded, by divine aj^point- ment, to the throne of the kingdom, we read of him that " He loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father" (1 Kings iii. 3). Scarcely had he entered on his regal office when, along with a multitude of his people, he " went to the high place that was at Gibeon," the tabernacle of the congrega- tion of God ; and after offering burnt -offerings unto the Lord, he earnestly besought Him, sajdng — " Now, Lord God, let thy promise unto David my father be established, for thou hast made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in multitude. Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people; for who can judge this thy people that is so great?" (2 Chron. i. 9, 10). The Lord had been pleased in a vision to invite him to ask whatever he would desire to have ; and this was the petition of the youthful king — '• I am but a little child," said he, in . a sjjirit of beautiful humility : " I know not how to go out or come in. And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast 1 4 INTRODUCTION. chosen, a great people tliat cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude. Give, therefore, thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad; for who is able to judge this thy so great a people 1" It was in answer to this truly touching and memorable request that "God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment; behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee. And I liave also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches and honour: so that there shall not be any of the kings like unto thee all thy days" (1 Kings iii. 7-14). It is a principle of God's moral administration that "whoso- ever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abun- dance" (Matt. xiii. 12). He who values and improves the gifts with which the Lord has endowed him, is thereby putting himself in the sure way of having these gifts still further in- creased. The very fact that Solomon, even in early youth, had the high sense which his petition indicates of the value of wisdom, is a conclusive proof that he had been assiduously cultivating his great mental powers; and that in the view of that exalted and responsible position Avhich he was destined to occupy, he had been studiously seeking after every kind of knowledge, human and divine, that was fitted to qualify him for it. Nor was it the least conspicuous mark of the eminent qualities by which he was already distinguished, that he felt so keenly how inadequate they were for the work that was now given him to do. It is ignorance that is boastful and confident. True wisdom is ever modest and humble. " Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Solomon's larger caioacity, and deeper knowledge, THE FAJVIE OF IIIS WI8D0.AI. 15 and more reverential spirit, enabled liini only tLe more clearly to perceive, and the more strongly to feel, the difficulties of the task that awaited him as the king of Israel. Hence the solemn earnestness of his prayer for a wise and understanding heart. Of the subsequent career of such a man we are ready at once to conclude, that expectations too sanguine could hardly be formed. Of one whom nature and grace had combined so re- markably to distinguish, we do not wonder to hear that he speedily became the admiration, not of his own country alone, but of the princes and people of many other lands. Other kings have made themselves known in even the most distant regions of the earth, by the force and the terror of their arms. The fame of Solomon was of a different and far more attractive kind. While he was yet unborn it had been foretold concern- ing him that he should be a man of rest, and that the Lord would give him rest from all his enemies round about, and would give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days. As this state of public tranquillity was peculiarly favourable to the cultivation of those tastes, and the development of those quali- ties, and the execution of those great public works in which Solomon so signally excelled, so was it also highly favourable to their becoming extensively known among the nations around. War keeps nations jealously apart. Peace draws them, in a thousand ways, into friendly intercourse with one another. Never, accordingly, either before or after, did ancient Israel occupy so eminent and influential a place among the neighbour- ing kingdoms "as during Solomon's illustrious reign. Her people multiplied — her commerce flourished — her wealth immensely increased; so tli^t, as we read (1 Kings x. 23, 24), "King Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth for riches and for wisdom. And all the earth sought to Solomon, to hear his wis- dom, which God had put in his heart." There was scarcely any branch of knowledge with which his acquaintance was not extensive and profound. He had studied with equal assiduity the works and the Word of God. Hardly anything, either 16 INTRODUCTION., in nature or in art, liad escaped the investigation of his pene- trating and comprehensive mind. The graces of poetry, the charms of music, the beautiful creations of the aesthetic arts, the severer studies of science and philosophy, the graver lessons deducible from the divine principles of morality and religion — he was at home in them all. Need we wonder that the court of this gifted monarch drew towards it all the inquiring minds of his age — that the mightiest of his contemporary sovereigns coveted his favour, and sought his friendship, and loaded him with their gifts — and that there should have gathered around him a magnificence and a glory, which, as they dazzled every eye that looked upon them, so did they at length fatally dazzle his own? " How hardly," said our Lord, " shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God !" (Mark x. 23). Worldly pomp and prosperity lay terrible snares for the soul. "Wealth and great- ness corrupted his lieaj:t; and instead of continuing to leaven the worshipping world with his piety and wisdom, the world seems insensibly to have leavened him with its errors and its sins. And now a dark and mournful period of his history begins. Not that his capital is less brilliant, or his court less crowded, or his royal estate less glitteriug and gorgeous than before. In all these respects he shines with only increasing splendour; but the moral glory of the man and of his reign are passing away. His most honoured guests and associates are not now the wise and good, the virtuous and holy, but those who are lovers oi pleasure more than lovers of God. Strange women and loose- ' living men are now his companions and friends, and they have corrupted his heart, and led him away from the God of his fathers. That temple which he had reared with so much care, and dedicated with so much solemnity to the service of the one Jehovah, is now forsaken for the altars of idolatry — for Ash- toreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, and Milcora, the abomina- tion of the Ammonites; for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. HIS DEPARTURE FROM GOD. 17 How has the gold become dim, and the most fine gold changed ! Ichabod ! Ichabod ! — for the glory is departed ! In this new career on which the misguided king has entered, it is evident from many unequivocal tokens that he is ill at ease. His former serenity no longer sits upon his brow. Often it is throbbing with the burning fever of intemperance, and oftener still with the anguish of remorse. In the vain hope of obtaining relief from this internal disquietude, his mind is ever on the rack, in quest of new occupations or new pleasures. Now he tears himself away from those base sensual indulgences to which he has given way, and shuts himself up in his chamber among his neglected books. Anon, growing weary of this soli- tude and of these exhausting studies, he plunges anew into all those degrading excesses which for the time he had laid aside, until the very satiety and disgust which they speedily produce, drive him once more away to seek his lost peace of mind in some more hopeful pursuit. Sick of his luxurious palace, and of its maddening pleasures, he hurries forth from the city to breathe the freshness and to enjoy the repose of nature, and his old love of nature's works returns. He sits him down beneath the cool shade of its majestic trees, and regales him with the odours of its fragrant flowers, and persuades himself that in this Elysium his happiness will return. He will enlarge and beautify his gardens, and store them with all that is rarest and fairest in the vegetable kingdom, and in this innocent and delightful employ- ment, health shall come back to his languid frame, and cheerful- ness to his care-worn and desolate heart. In a word, he tries every means of expelling the worm that is gnawing at his con- science but one ; and he tries in vain. And were it not that this book of Ecclesiastes has been handed down to us among the Scriptures of Truth, we might have seemed to be shut up to the mournful conclusion that he had gone to the grave in a state of hopeless and final estrangement from God. But this book is the cheering and decisive evidence that before his sun went down, the clouds which for a season covered it had rolled away, 18 INTRODUCTION. and tliat its setting was bright with the radiance of life and im- mortality. TJiere can hardly be a doubt in the mind of any one who carefully examines the question, and who places this book side by side with that record of Solomon's personal history which the first book of Kings and the second book of Chro- nicles contain — that this book is the complement, so to speak, of the historical narrative — that the one comes in where the other ends — and that without it we should have lost the grandest lessons which the life of Solomon was designed to teach. If the previous sketch of its inspired author's history has at all served its inteiided purpose, it can hardly have failed to throw much light on the design with which the book of Eccle- siastes was written. Read in the light of its connection with his preceding life, its design becomes clear as day. Ancient heathen moralists were wont to speculate much on what they called the summum honum, or chief good of man. In their able, and in many respects instructive and remarkable treatises, they left the grand question still unresolved. But, guided by the Spirit of God, and taught by his own terrible experience, the king of Israel has expounded this mystery. He has taught us infallibly what is " that good for the sons of men which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life" (Eccles. »/4i. 3). The summum honum, the chief good, is " to fear God and to keep his commandments." The design of the book of Ecclesi- astes is to illustrate and enforce this all-important truth ; and never, perhaps, did any son of Adam occupy such a vantage-ground for performing this great work as the son of David. Do the wise men of this world object to the conclusion here pronounced, that only one who could grapple with the deep things of science and philosophy is competent to instruct them on such a theme % In respect even of natural knowledge and mental endowments, Solomon was the wisest of men's sons. Do the men of culti- vated taste and intellectual refinement contend that only those who are capable of ai:»preciatiug the beauties of nature and the graces of art, and the productions of literary genius, are entitled THE LESSONS TAUGHT BY HIS FOLLY. 19 to say whether happiness may not be found in earthly and created things 1 In every one of these attainments Solomon was the first man of his age : a poet, a naturalist, an assiduous cultivator of the fine arts, eminent for every accomplisliment in which the scholar or the man of taste can excel. Or, once more, do the men of the world — the gay, joyous, pleasure-loving, boon companions who laugh care away — or those whose wealth, and rank, and power, place all sorts of enjoyment within their reach, and at their command — do they think themselves entitled to hold that no one who is a stranger to their favoured circle can tell what elements of happiness it includes, and how much it can do to furnish man with all that his heart can desire ? Of that brilliant circle Solomon was the very centre and star. If wit, or wine, or mirthful company, or song, or sensual indulgence, could give man the contentment and happiness for which his nature longs, Solomon was the man of all others that must have had the fullest share of all those blessings. He is, therefore, by their own confession, the very master at whose feet they ought to sit, in order that they may listen to his experience, and learn his decision. The Lord, in His mysterious providence, per- mitted His own Jedidiah to forsake Him for a season, and to go after other gods, that in His own time and way He might bring the Avanderer back, to tell the men of all after-times, and to tell it as one who had authority to speak, what he had found. And this, at his return, is the sum of that truth which, in this blessed book, he has given by inspiration to the world — that without God, and away from God, all is vanity and vexation of sj^irit. By nature we are, every one of us, of the earth, earthy — prone to set our affections upon the things which are beneath, and to love and serve the creature more than the Creator. How neces- sary is it that we should be often and earnestly reminded of the folly and the sinfulness of such a choice ! And with what an infinite variety of most felicitous illustrations and impressive examples is this admonition enforced by this royal Preacher, 20 INTRODUCTION. who had himself slowly and painfully learned what he has here so strikingly taught ! As we follow him through the changing scenes which he describes, and mark the all but countless sources from which his arguments are derived, we shall have abundant cause to contemplate, with admiration, the over-ruling providence of that God who is ever wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. We shall then see a purpose and a plan not only in all those high intellectual endowments and im- mense and multifarious acquirements by which Solomon was dis- tinguished, but even in those dark and disastrous aberrations in which for a season he was permitted to go astray. Not by his wisdom only, but by his folly too, was God preparing him to be at once a beacon and a guide. The Holy Spirit has, in this book, made use both of all his excellences and of all his errors, for the warning and for the instruction of the w^orld. It is this very circumstance that makes it a task so difficult fully to set forth what these words of the Preacher, the son of David, king of Jerusalem, contain. To do justice to such a work would almost require a grasp of mind as large, and a store of know- ledge as vast and various as his own. For the elucidation of the great theme he has in hand he lays under tribute the whole economy of nature and the whole condition of man. With a science that had scanned the phenomena of the one and the fortunes of the other, and with a philosophy that had looked deeply and thoughtfully into the hidden laws which they obey, he makes both nature and human life bear witness with one harmonious voice to this fundamental fact, that there is no real good and no true happiness for man in a state of estrangement from God. May He whose inspiration gave this large under- standing to Solomon, give us patience to study, ability to learn, and willinorness to receive what this wisest of men's sons has taught. And as we strive, in humble and prayerful dependence on divine illumination, to gather up the mind of the Spirit as unfolded in this pregnant and precious portion of the Word, may we ever look through Solomon to a still mightier Preacher A GREATER THAN SOLOMON. 21 and more glorious King, even to Him who is the power of God and the wisdom of God. And as the conviction which Solomon sought, by this book, to establish, grows and deepens in our minds, that to be seeking happiness in created things, is to be hewing out unto ourselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water — let us be stirred up to follow, more closely and more earnestly than ever, after Him who alone can give us living water : who will be to us an all-sufficient portion in the life that now is, and a glorious and everlasting inheritance in the life to come. 22 THE SUBJECT OPENED. CHAPTER II. THE PKEACHER, HIS TEXT, AND THE EXORDIUM OF HIS DISCOURSE. "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities ; all is vanity. "What profit hath a man of aU his laboiu- which he taketh under the sim? One genei-ation passeth away, and another generation cometh : but the earth abideth for ever. The sim also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth towai'd the south, and tiu-neth about imto the north : it wkirleth about continu- ally ; and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers rmi into the sea ; yet the sea is not full : unto the place from whence the rivei-s come, thither they return again. All things are full of labour ; man cannot utter it .- the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with heaiing. " The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be ; and that which is done, is that which shall be done : and there is no new t?iing under the sun. Is there ani/ thing whereof it may be said. See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of foi-mer things ; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after." — Eccles. i. 2-11. IN tlie previous chapter^ introductory to the exposition of this book, reference was made to its inspired authorship, to the period and circumstances of Solomon's life in which it appears to have been written, and to its main scope and design. We are now, therefore, in some measure, prepared to enter on the study of it, and to gather up, under the teaching and guidance of the Holy Spirit, the great lessons which it is so well fitted and so evidently intended to teach. The son of David, king of Jerusalem, is the preacher whose words we are now invited to hear; and his singularly striking and significant text is this, "Yanity of vanities, vanity of vani- ties; all is vanity." When Massillon ascended the pulpit to pronounce the funeral oration of the greatest monarch of France — a monarch whose long and splendid reign, Avliose military concpiests, whose brilliant court, and whose personal THE preacher's THEME IS HIMSELF. 23 magnijScence liad, for more than half a century, dazzled all Europe — the preacher, after looking around him on the sable draperies and solemn insignia of death, thrilled every heart in the vast assembly before him, when he broke the breathless silence which pervaded it with these expressive words — " God alone is great!" That brief sentence was felt instinctively by all to embody the very thought which the scene suggested, and, for the moment at least, the gayest courtiers and the haughtiest princes and peers of France seem, equally with the meanest of the people, to have realized the utter nothingness of man, in the presence of the power and sovereignty of God. We do not wonder that the memory of an occurrence so suggestive should still survive, after the lapse of an hundred and fifty years; and yet, arresting and impressive as it may have been, . it was in both of these respects unspeakably inferior to that far older inci- dent which the opening words of this book cannot fail to call up to every reflective mind. The preacher here is the king himself — a monarch more illustrious by far than any that the world has ever witnessed in modern times. He has laid aside his sceptre and come down from his throne, and taken his place in the pulpit, to deliver a discourse addressed to the whole world. Instead of leaving it to some one else, after the grave should have closed over him, to point the moral which his life conveys, he comes forth in the humble garb of a penitent, before quitting this earthly stage, to point it himself. He, too, looks around him ere he begins. Scenes vivid and various pass in rapid review before the eye of his soul. That eye, now touched with an unction from the Holy One, instead of being blinded as once it was by their deceitful glare, now calmly, and perhaps tear- fully, regards them as little better than the pageantry of death. Gardens and palaces, chariots and horsemen, music and wine, royal banquets and merry companies, and all sensual delights — alternating, sometimes with lighter and sometimes with severer intellectual pursuits — these, and such like, follow each other in long procession, as busy memory summons them up from the 24 THE SUBJECT OPENED. depths of the past, and causes them to flit like living realities before his mental vision ; and when he has surveyed them all, and has recalled his own personal experience of them all, this is his deliberate judgment concerning them — "Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities; all is vanity." Before entering on the wide field of beautiful and most feli- citous illustration by which the royal Preacher expounds and enforces this striking text, it is necessary, in the outset, to guard from misconstruction the text itself It were a great error to regard it as the misanthropic utterance of a jaundiced and disappointed mind, which sees everything through the medium of its own gloomy and distempered spirit, and scowls in sullen discontentment even at those things which are most innocent and good. The world has often witnessed cases of that kind : men who have been so soured by misfortune, or so sated with sensual pleasures, as to be unable to enjoy anything; and whose only delight appeared to consist in pouring out the venom of their wounded pride, or the scornfulness of their bloated pas- sions and blunted sensibilities, upon every one and everything around them. It was under the influence of no such feelings o that Solomon gave expression to the sentiment before us. He had lost none of his sympathies either with nature or with his fellowrnen; but he had at length learned to know the true place that belonged to them. He had found out this, that in them- selves, and apart from God, created things are no satisfying portion for the human soul, and are utterly incajDable of im- parting solid peace or lasting happiness to man. In this sense considered, they are no better than the shadow which we in vain attempt to grasp. We pursue it eagerly, we try to seize it a thousand times, but as often the sickening discovery is made that we have taken nothing ; or, worse still, in thus setting our affections on the things that are beneath, and becoming lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, how often are we made to feel that we have been but gathering the apples of Sodom, beautiful and inviting to the eye as they hung on the SOLOMON NOT A CYNIC. 25 forbidden tree, but resolved, in tlie very act of seizing them, into bitter dust and asLes. _ Let it, then, be clearly and well understood that this sweeping sentence of Solomon is neither the splenetic language of envy, nor the contemptuous sneer of one whom long prosperity and unre- strained self-indulgence have pampered and depraved. He has no quarrel either with men or things when he solemnly and deli- berately pronounces the verdict which that sentence contains. Perhaps no man of his time knew so well as the enlightened king of Israel how much there is, both in the constitution of man and in the whole economy of the external world, that, instead of being useless and unprofitable, is, on the contrary, most excel- lent, beneficent, and wise. It was certainly no part of his purpose in speaking so strongly as he does, to imply that God had failed in any part of his great design in calling this universe into being, and that verily he had made all things in vain and for nought. Nothing could be farther from the mind of Solomon than to bring any such charge against either the works or the ways of God. Both the philosophy and the piety of Solomon had con- ducted him to an entirely opposite conclusion. This very book most unequivocally shows with what a profound and compre- hensive intelligence he had observed the phenomena and studied the laws of the physical creation, and how much he had seen in them of the power and wisdom and goodness of the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth. Nor had the moral world — includ- iner the whole condition and relations of man — less occupied his thoughtful mind. Not in this book only, but in that mar- vellous production, the book of Proverbs, we have ample and convincing proof of the closeness with which he had looked into the human spirit— how thoroughly, under the guidance of inspir- ation,, he had searched out the principles by which its Divine Author meant it to be governed — and how clearly he saw how ruinous man's departure from these principles had been. It is not, therefore, of created things in themselves, and in their own proper place, that Solomon means to say that they 26 SOLOMON'S TEXT. are all vanity; but it is of these things as misused and mis- applied by nngodly and unspiritual men. Substituted for the things that are above — substituted for Him whose favour is life, and whose loving-kindness is better than life — even the best of them are no better than wells without water, and clouds with- out rain, and trees whose fruit withereth; while as regards those of a baser sort — those which minister to the lusts of the flesh — it may be not less truly testified of the men that are given np to them, that they are like "raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame — wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever." Understanding, then, the general statement contained in the second verse, in the sense and under the reservations now ex- plained, let us advance to the argument, and the evidence by which it is supported. The first proposition in proof of the statement that all is vanity, which the Preacher lays down, is the somewhat startling one that man has no profit " of all his labour which he taketh under the sun." The proposition is put, indeed, in the form of a question, but, at the same time, in such a way as plainly implies that it is demonstrably true. Now, there is undoubtedly a sense, as Solomon himself elsewhere allows, in which it may be most confidently affirmed that " in all labour there is profit" (Prov. xiv. 23). The very effort itself, whether of mind or body, which labour involves, is good and salutary. The labour of the hands invigorates the corporeal frame, and the labour of the head develops and strengthens the faculties of the mind. Apart, therefore, from any direct fruit or reward which the labour may yield, it exerts upon the labourer himself a most useful and wholesome infiuence. So necessary, in fact, is work of some kind or other felt to be, that without it life would become intolerable. It is accordingly under this im- patience of having nothing to do, and to escape from the misery of that ennui which inaction and idleness inevitably produce, that many who have no need and no inclination to labour for mere worldly gain, do yet toil harder than even those whose lot ITS TRUE MEANING. 27 it is to earn tlieir daily bread in the sweat of tlieir brow. In short, instead of asserting or assuming that man has "no profit" in all his labour, it might seem much more just and reasonable to maintain that he has no profit without labour. What is obtained without effort is commonly little valued, and generally is little worth. Labour sweetens the food Avliich it purchases and the rest which it secures. It is the very law of progress in everything that is good and great, and without it hardly any- thing can be attained that is really desirable for man. What meaning, then, is it intended that we should put upon these words'? Obviously such a meaning as shall be in harmony with the Preacher's fundamental doctrine, that " all is vanity." All is vanity to the man who seeks his happiness away from God, and to that man there is no profit in all his labour which he taketh under the sun. His labour, however unwearied, never brings him one step nearer his aim. Like that Sisyphus of whom the fable tells, he is painfully rolling a heavy stone up the steep mountain's side, and the moment he withdraws his hand it rushes back to the bottom again. To illustrate this ceaseless and yet unprofitable toil, a series of beautiful examples are employed in the verses which follow. First, we are called to contemplate the fluctuations of the human race, which resemble the ebb and flow of the ocean's tides, continually advancing and receding, but never gaining upon the land. " One generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth for ever." Our fathers, where are they? and the pro- phets, do they live for ever? The Nile still flows in its ancient^ bed, but the Pharaohs who built those massive j^yramids which continue to throw their evening shadows across its fertilizing stream are loncc since forfjotten and unknown. The mount from whose flaming summit the voice of God came forth still looks down upon the depths ai-ound it and upon the dreary wilderness beyond, but the tribes and the tents of Israel have disappeared. The sea of Tiberias still lies embedded, bright and blue, amid the hills of Galilee and Golan, but the men who 28 Solomon's text. crowded its shores to listen to the voice of One who spake as never man spake are nowhere to be found. The earth abideth ; its mountains and plains — its rivers and seas, are substantially as they were, and where they were, thousands of years ago, but earth's inhabitants have found upon it no continuing city, nor any sure place of abode. It has been alternately their cradle and their grave. There has been a ceaseless coming and going — continual movement, and yet no progress; no advance made in the way of gaining a surer footing, a more lasting place, a firmer hold upon their earthly inheritance. The generation that now exists, and has the earth at this moment in actual possession, holds it by a tenure as fleeting and insecure as that which belonged to the men of Babylon or Nineveh, whose cities and palaces, like themselves, have lain for ages buried in the dust. But a few short years have to run their course, and of all those thousand millions of living men who now people this world, not one solitary surviver will remain. "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh ; but the earth," as if in mockery of man's transient career, "abideth for ever!" From the earth the royal Preacher next turns his eye upward to the heavens, and there he finds a new example to illustrate the truth he has just proclaimed — "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose." From the windows of his palace, upon Mount Zion, Solomon could catch the first flush of the early dawn, as it reddened the eastern sky, and mark the very spot on the far-off horizon where the bright orb of day rose majestically from behind the mountains of Moab, coming forth as a strong man out of his chamber to run a race. What distance, howsoever remote, might not such a traveller hope to reach ! As he swept along, he saw the smoke of the morning-sacrifice ascending from the courts of the temple at Jerusalem; and already he had tra- versed the broad Atlantic, and looked down on the vast primeval forests of the New World, and lighted up the wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean with his beaming countenance, before the ILLUSTRATIONS. 29 fires of the evening-sacrifice had been yet kindled on the hill of Zion. But where is he, after all, when the hour at which he rose once more arrives? He is coming up from behind the mountains of Moab again — he has " returned to his place where he arose," and is only preparing to run the same race anew. And so is it with all the labour that the man who is livinir yithout God taketh under the sun. He is travelling in a circle, incessantly toiling on, but never getting beyond the point from which he first set out. "As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour which he may carry away in his hand" (v. 15). By all the acquisitions of all his labour he cannot " by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him : . . . that he should still live for ever, and not see cor- ruption. For he seetli that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling-places to all generations ; they call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not : he is like the beasts that perish. This their way is their folly" (Psalm xlix. 7—13). From the ceaseless and yet unprogressive revolutions of the sun, the Preacher points next to the motions of the changeful wind — " The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continuall}^, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits." We cannot tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth. It shifts often sud- denly and without warning, and in obedience to influences which we can neither foresee nor control. There is no quarter of the heavens from which at one time or another it does not blow. And yet, variable and capricious as its movements may a2:)pear, they are governed by laws as fixed and certain as those which regulate the tides of the ocean or the orbits of the stars. The same All-wise and Almighty Buler who hath set bounds to the waters of the deep, and said to them, "Hitherto shalt so Solomon's text. thou come, and no furtlier," liatli assigned "tlieir circuits" to the winds of heaven, from which they cannot deviate, and within which they are perpetually confined. From the stillness of the calm they may advance to the terrific sweep of the hur- ricane; but only to return to the stillness of the calm again. Boreas, and Eurus, and iNotus, and Hesperus may succeed each other, as the tempest flies round the heaven; and each in his turn may shake the forest and mingle the sea and sky ; but they can do no more. They can only return to their appointed cir- cuits again. And as it is with the sun and with the wind, so is it with the rivers that run into the sea. Look at that tiny rill trickling down from the face of some glacier in the Alps, or Andes, or Himalaya, how soon it swells in its descending course from a gentle rivulet into a fierce, impetuous stream; and finally escaping from the mountains where it rose, rushes forth into the plain, a broad majestic river, carrying verdure and fruit- fulness all along its rejoicing course — sweeping through vine- clad vales, and shady forests, and waving corn-lields — gliding past quiet hamlets and busy towns — and bearing on its ample bosom many a richly laden bark, as it hastens onward to pour its accumulated and now mighty flood into the boundless sea. Into that same all-encircling sea, not this one river only, but countless others, like-copious and far-descended tributaries, are continually discharging their rolling waters. Surely a sea so fed must at length rise and overflow its bounds. But not so. '' All the rivers run into the sea ; yet the sea is not full ; unto the place from whence the rivers come, ^thither they return again." The Preacher had "great experience of wisdom and knowledge." He had searched out that wonderful and beautiful economy of nature, according to which the thirsty air is conti- nually drinking up the sea — sucking up the waters of the deep in spongy clouds, and bearing them away upon the wings of the wind, and dashing them against the lofty ridges of the land, and thus filling the far-oflf lakes and far-up fountain-heads from ILLUSTRATIONS. 81 whence the rivers come ; and thereby maintaining, undisturbed and unaltered from age to age, that ceaseless circulation of the watery element, by virtue of which the rivers continually flow, while yet no increase is ever made to the volume of the deep — a perfect balance being thus preserved between them. It is this goodly order, and this beneficent arrangement, which the father of Solomon so fitly celebrates in the 65th Psalm — " Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou greatly enri chest it with the river of God, which is full of water : . . . thou blessest the springing thereof: thou crownest the year with thy goodness ; and thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilder- ness; and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks ; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing" (9-13). David had referred to that subject for one purpose : Solomon points to it for another. The one employed it to magnify the wisdom and goodness of God : the other adduces it to illustrate the folly and the sinfulness of man. Bent on finding happiness among the things of sense and time, he labours on in the vain hope that at length he must succeed. But just as the incessant running of all the rivers into the sea never makes it full — never raises its level one hair-breadth higher than it was — so is it with all the labour which man taketh under the sun. The expected profit never comes. The aching void in his heart is never filled ; and having lived and laboured without God, he dies without hope. Leaving these illustrations, borrowed from the facts of phy- sical nature, he goes on to enforce the great lesson which it is his leading object in this passage to teach, by appealing to the still sterner facts of ordinary human life. " All things," says the Preacher, " are full of labour ; man cannot utter it : the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'' Every grade of society has its own burden to bear in this toil- worn world. We speak of the working-classes, as if the only labourers were those who wrought with their hands. But Solomon knew in his day, and thousands know it in ours, that 32 Solomon's text. *^ "much study is a weariness of the flesh:"' that intellectual efforts and mental cares are more exhausting by far than mere bodily toil. Labour is the common lot of man. Look at these pale faces and busy hands in the crowded factory; at these brawny forms sweating around the furnace or the forge; at these thronging multitudes, each intent upon his own errand, hurrying through the streets ; at the trader engrossed with his customers and his wares ; at the anxious merchant absorbed in the calculations and pondering the risks of his commerce ; at the student buried in his books; at the mother watching, correcting, and fondling, by turns, her wayw^ard children — and say, if it be not emphatically true, that "all things are full of labour;" that "man cannot utter it." And if this survey could be extended so as to include the entire world, should we not find the whole earth like one huofe hive, from which the hum of incessant toil is heard con- tinually to ascend ? " The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" (Rom. viii. 22). And yet, after all, the " eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hear- ing ;" the one cannot rest complacently on the sight, nor the other listen with comfort to the ceaseless sound. The sameness of it wearies both senses alike. To-day is just like yesterday ; and to- morrow will be just like to-day. For, continues the Preacher, " The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be : and that which is done is that which shall be done : and there is no new thins: under the sun." We search the most ancient records of his- tory, and what do they tell us of the condition and pursuits of men in those byegone times % They tell us that they bought and sold — that they planted and builded — that they wronged and oppressed each other — that nation rose up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom — very much as they do at the present hour. We dig into the shapeless mounds which cover the once regal abodes of a Nebuchadnezzar or a Nimrod, or we explore the venerable monuments of a still remoter antiquity on the banks of the Nile, and what do we find but fresh confirmations of this saying of Solomon, that there is " no new thing under ILLUSTRATIONS. ' 33 the sun?" The very achievements in which our modern world would make her chief boast, seem, with few exceptions, to have been all achieved before. Both science and the arts had been so assiduously and successfully cultivated by men whose very names are utterly unknown, and by generations whose memory has altogether perished, that while, on the one hand, we are forced to exclaim, " Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new ? it hath been already of old time, which was before us" — so, on the other, Ave are compelled to acknowledge the vanity of those labours of the men of other times, seeing that, in the very act of discovering them, we are reminded of the humbling fact that " There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come, with those that shall come after." What a poor thing, then, it is to labour for a mere worldly end ! We toil, and toil, and never make one incli of progress towards the happiness we are expending all this eifort to reach. We have no real profit — no profit that can pacify an accusing con- science, or purify a sinful heart, or secure the acceptance of a guilty soul with God — in all the labour of that kind that we take under the sun. Such labour resembles the ceaseless coming and going of the successive generations of men; or the apparent course of the sun round the earth, ever returning to the place whence it rose; or the movement of the winds in their appointed circuits, or of the rivers from the mountains to the sea, and from the sea back to the mountains again. All things — all departments of life — are full of this labour, that exhausts itself upon earthly objects and aims, and that ever ends in vanity and vexation of spirit. It may be exciting and satisfying for a time, but it soon grows into a weariness — a dull and joyless round of the same things over and over again. The eye is tired of seeing the unvarying sight, and the ear of hearing the unvarying sound. The poor drudge may try at times to persuade himself that he is, at least, surpassing, in his own department, all who have gone before him ; and his pride and perseverance may be stimulated by the 34 • Solomon's text. tliouglit that his industry, or his science, or his artistic genius, or his literary lore, are giving birth to some new thing under the sun — to something that will serve, even among latest gene- rations, to perpetuate his fame. After all, it proves but a repe- tition of that which has been before, and in no long time both the work and its author are alike forgotten. For, as in looking back upon the past, we find " there is no remembrance of former things;" so, in looking forward to the future, we may be well assured that " neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come, with those that shall come after." Men and deeds mightier and more memorable by far, in their day, than we or our works can pretend to be in our own, have passed away and left no trace of their existence behind. Have we not, then, abundant cause to return to the royal Preacher's text, and to say of all such labour, " Yanity of vanities, vanity of vanities ; all is vanity '? " Yes, all labour is, and must be unprofitable and vain, that is not directed towards the great end of our being, which is to glorify and enjoy God. " This," said another royal preacher, and one greater than Solomon, " this is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom God hath sent" (John vi. 29). When once, through grace, we have done this, then everything else we do will possess a new character — our worldly business will be prosecuted in a different spirit — the commonest actions of life will take another and a higher aim; — every service will be dignified, and every labour will be lightened by the elevating thought, that it is " done unto the Lord." Let us give heed then to the exhortation, "*tiabour not for the meat that per- isheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you : for him hath God the Father sealed" (John vi. 27). Say not, "What shall we eat ? or. What shall we drink 1 or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? — for after all these things do the nations seek — for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his THE LESSON TAUGHT. 35 righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt. vi. 31-33). Unhappily, the too common course is to reverse this divine order — to seek the world first, and to trust that, somehow or other, the kingdom and the righteousness of God will be gained at a future and more convenient time. To the world, accordingly, men devote the prime and vigour of their days. The world's riches and honours, its gaieties and pleasures, its follies and lusts — after these they run with eager steps; and, meanwhile, the things that belong to their eternal peace are pushed aside and forgotten. They begin, indeed, ere long, to find that they have no profit in all this labour — that it is ever and anon disappointing their fondest hopes — that its very acqui- sitions prove to be a burden, and its enjoyments a weariness; and that its sweetest draughts leave a bitterness behind. The feeling that in such a life " all is vanity," forces itself with increasing frequency on their minds. In their inmost heart they have a growing sense of emptiness and weariness, from which, neverthe- less, they try no other mode of getting relief than by returning anew to the customary round of their former ways. And, alas ! how many thousands, and tens of thousands, go on thus to the end, knowing all the while that there is a more excellent way and a better choice, which, nevertheless, their increasing world- liness will not sufier them to take ! They may have become rich — they may have grown great — they may have gathered around them a wide circle of friends-^but a secret whisper tells them that they have been sowing to the flesh, of the flesh to reap corruption. At last, the death-hour arrives — the day of grace is over — the acceptable year of the Lord is at an end ; and now, when it is too late, they realize the awful truth that they have no profit of all the labour which they have taken under the sun ! — that, in striving to gain the world, they have lost their souls ! 36 THE preacher's life. CHAPTER III. THE STORY OF THE PREACHER'S LIFE. • ' I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven : this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man, to be exercised therewith. " I have seen all the works that are done under the sun ; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. That zchich is crooked cannot be made straight ; and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. " I commimed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem ; yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly : I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much gi-ief ; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. " I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth ; therefore enjoy jilea- sure : and, behold, this also 'is vanity. I said of laughter, It is mad; and of mirth, What doeth it ? " 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 v:as that good for the sons of men which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. I made me great works; I builded me houses ; I planted me vineyards ; I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all hind o/' fruits ; I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees ; I got me sei-vants and maidens, and had servants bom in my house ; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me : I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar trea- sure of kings and of the provinces ; I gat me men-singers and women-singei-s, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical insti-uments, and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jenisalem : also my wisdom remaiued with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them ; I with- held not my heart from any joy j for my heart rejoiced in all my labour ; and this was my portion of all ray labour. 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 teas vanity and vexation of spirit, and there teas no profit under the sun." — Eccles. i. 1--18; ii. 1-11. IN the preceding context the Preacher has told us who he is, and what is to be the leading subject of his discourse, and has thrown out some general reflections of a nature to prepare us for what is to follow. Hitherto, however, he has made no reference to his own individual connection with the matter in hand. So far WHO HE IS. 37 as we have gone lie might have been, for anything he has yet said, a simple looker-on, about to give us the results of his own reflections, or a description of what he had observed in others. It is now, for the first time, we learn that the case is altogether difierent. From the passage before us we begin to discover that it is not an abstract discussion, but a personal history with which we have here to do. The school in which this instructor has been taught, is that of his own painfully acquired experience. A deeper and fresher interest gathers in consequence upon his words. There is always a peculiar charm and a peculiar force in the lessons of an actual life. They have a felt reality about them which at once awakens our sympathy and commands our confidence. This, we are ready to say, is no imaginary picture, no empty speculation, but a series of facts ; for he who tells us of them, has himself proved them all. There is a difierence, not undeserving of notice, in the an- nouncement which the Preacher makes of himself in the 12tli verse, as compared with that which he had previously made in the opening verse of the book. That opening verse informed us that the words about to be spoken were those of the son of David, king of Jerusalem. From the outset, therefore, we knew that we were listening to a royal preacher ; but whether the truths to be embodied in his inspired discourse had been learned before or after he ascended the throne, the opening verse did not explain. In the 12th verse, however, this information is distinctly- communicated. " I the Preacher," it is here expressly stated, " was king over Israel in Jerusalem." Not only am I king now, when this discourse is pronounced, but I was king at the period when these proceedings took 2:)lace, which my discourse will be found to describe. It was not in my early youth the career was run, and the observations and reflections were made, which this book of Ecclesiastes records. Had it been so, the objection might perhaps have been urged that at so immature an age, and with necessarily but limited means and opportunities at my command, I could not then be in a position either fully to work out the 88 THE preacher's life. problem of what this world can do to farnish a satisfying portion for man, or to form a right opinion regarding it. As the case actually stands, however, there is no room to raise any such question. It was in the prime and vigour of my days, and with the unfettered freedom and the exhaustless resources of a sove- reign prince, that I made this great experiment. If ever, there- fore, there was a man on earth entitled to speak with authority upon the subject, I am he! Such would seem to be somethiug like the design and import of the statement which this 12th verse contains. It is not to be regarded as a mere gratuitous repetition of what he had said before. In virtue of what he had said before, we knew that these were the words of a king. In virtue of what he says now, we know that these words embody the 2ye7'sonal experiences of a king. By this 1 2th verse, accord- ingly, we are brought to the proper point of view for studying these experiences. The scene we are to survey is Jerusalem in the height of its magnificence. The actor on that scene is the most illustrious monarch that ever occupied the throne of Israel. The time is the very noonday of his life, when all his powers, mental and bodily, are in their fullest strength, and when his great dominion, his prodigious wealth, his umivalled fame, and his immense popularity, have placed, so to speak, the world at his feet. Well may we look and listen when such an one comes forth to tell us what the world is worth, as a substitute for the love and the enjoyment of God. In his earlier days Solomon, as has been already noticed, had been eminent for his piety. Under the care of his godly father, he had been brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. " I was my father's son," he says, referring else- where to this interesting subject, " tenderly and only beloved in the sight of my mother. He taught me also, and said unto me. Let thine heart retain my words, keep my command- ments, and live. Get wisdom, get understanding, forget it not : neither decline from the words of my mouth. ... I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led thee in right HIS EARLY PIETY. 39 paths" (Prov. iv. 3, 4, 5, 11). These salutary counsels which the good old king had so often addressed to his son as he grew up before him, were most solemnly and impressively enforced with his latest breath. For when the days approached that David should die, he charged Solomon his son, saying, '•' I go the way of all the earth : be thou strong, therefore, and show thyself a man ; and keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, that thou mayest prosper in all that thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest thyself: that the Lord may con- tinue his word which he spake concerning me, saying. If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail thee — said he — a man on the throne of Israel" (1 Kings ii. 2-4). We do not wonder, therefore, to be told, that when he came to the throne of the kingdom, his first concern was to build the temple of God; and never surely did earthly sovereign set a nobler example to his people than did Solomon the king, when he himself led their devotions in dedicating that glorious temple to the Lord. At what precise period his piety began to fade, the Scripture history does not distinctly indicate. There seems no reason to doubt, however, that its decay was gradual and progressive. It is seldom, indeed, that religious convictions and habits, where they are at all deep and strong, are thrown ofi* suddenly. Satan would not succeed so often as he does, if it were his very first de- mand that his victim should entirely and all at once cast the fear of God away. He knows that the process of sap and mine will, in the end, subdue many a citadel, which it would be hopeless to attempt to carry by immediate and open assault. By such a se- ductive process, no doubt, it was that the devout and spiritually- minded Solomon was brought at length so far in his mournful course of defection that he went after other gods, and " did evil in the sight of the Lord," so that "the Lord was angry with Solo- 40 THE preacher's LIFE. mon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel" (1 Kings xi. 5, 6, 9). We may rest assured that long before he had sunk so low as to become a worshipper of idols, he had lost his former love and reverence for the God of his fathers. And if we might venture to trace, with such imperfect materials as the Scriptures supply, the steps of his dov\Tiward career, perhaps we should not greatly err in specifying as the first of these steps, his giving way to the pride of superior knowledge. Gifted with a penetrating and com})rehensive intellect, and evidently addicted to study from his earliest years, he surpassed in the extent and variety of his mental acquirements all the men of his time. His wisdom, we are told, " excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men : than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol : and his fame was in all nations round about. And he spake three thousand proverbs; and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall : he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes" (1 Kings iv. 30-33). Into his proverbs he had condensed the choicest maxims of moral and political science — in his songs he had given expression at once to his piety and to his poetic genius — in his discourses or treatises on natural history he had ranged over the whole length and breadth of both the animal and vegetable kingdoms; and we can therefore well conceive what an ascendency these high qualities must have given him over the minds of others, and what a crowding there must have been to the privileged as- semblies where those treasures of knowledge were wont to be displayed. It does not surprise us to read that " there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth which had heard of his wisdom" (1 Kings iv. 34). For a time, indeed, he doubtless remembered, and gratefully acknow- ledged, that for all these great endowments he was indebted to the only wise God ; for it was God who " gave Solomon ORIGIN OF HIS FALL. 41 wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore " (1 Kings iv 29). But, alas ! how few can long inhale the incense of such adulation as must have surrounded the throne of Solomon, with- out becoming intoxicated with vain thoughts. Even Moses, the meekest of men, forgot himself at the rock in Horeb, and arro- gated to himself the glory that was due unto the Lord. It need not, therefore, seem to us a strange thing, if amid the flattery of courtiers and the applauses of the multitude, Solomon began to worship himself; and, looking around him on his high place and power, began to say in his heart, " By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am prudent" (Isaiah X. 13). His wisdom having thus become his idol, he persuades him- self that it will enable him to solve all mysteries and to rectify all disorders, and thus to render him the master both of his own destiny and of the destinies of his people, nay, of the whole world. We can imaoine hov/ such a notion would captivate a generous, great, and aspiring mind. He sees in the state of society, and in the condition of individual men, evils which he would fain remove, and wrongs vrhich he would fain redress. Many are suffering from disease, many are pining in poverty, many are groaning beneath the iron yoke of injustice and oppres- sion. Good men are often treated with neglect, or covered with obloquy, while wicked men are as often high in place and power. Why is all this ? What is the source and explanation of these painful anomalies? Cannot I, who have searched out so many deep things, fathom this secret too? Shall it not be the privi- lege and the prerogative of Solomon the wise, to inaugurate a new and better condition of things? Is not this a natural and probable account of the circumstances and state of mind to which these words apply: '' And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven ! " Some commentators on this book have, it is true, understood 3 42 THE preacher's life. this language and tlie wliole passage to wliicli it belongs, as if it were intended simply to intimate that the first of the ways in which Solomon sought to find happiness away from God, Avas by giving himself up to intellectual pursuits. They have been at much pains, accordingly, in handling this passage, to prove that, however pure and elevating such pursuits in their own nature and in their own place may be, they have no power to supply that satisfying portion, that highest good, after which our nature in- stinctively longs. And all this is undeniably true. But still, it may be reasonably doubted whether this be really the truth which this part of the royal Preacher's history was meant to teach. It is not, we apprehend, either the mere eflforts of intel- lectual study, or the intellectual knowledge resulting from these efibrts, of which Solomon intends here to say, that he found them to be vanity and vexation of si^irifc. It is not the labours of a mere student, of a mere devourer of books, which are here described. The admirable and instructive, though not always critically accurate, Matthew Henry had evidently adopted that view, when after leaving this passage, and when entering on the new phase of Solomon's career, which ojjens at the commencement of the 2d chapter, he quaintly and graphically says : — "Solomon here, in pursuit of the summum honum, the felicity of man, ad- journs out of his study, his library, his laboratory, his council- chamber, where he had in vain sought for it, into the park and the playhouse, his garden and his summer-house, exchanging the company of philosophers and grave senators for that of the wits and gallants, and the heaux esprits of his court, to try if he could find true satisfaction and happiness among them. Here he takes a great step downward from the noble pleasures of intellect to the brutal ones of sense : yet, if he resolve to make a thorough trial, he must knock at this door, because here a great part of mankind imagine they have found that which he was in quest of" He sought happiness first, that is to say, in the researches of learning and science, and not suc- ceeding in that direction, he sought it next in the baser grati- HIS BACKSLIDING CAREER. 43 fications of sensual pleasure. In tlie view thus expressed we do not concur. It is not only, we think, erroneous in itself, but is pervaded by a very common fallacy as to the entire theory of this book. A frequent assumption regarding this book is, that Solomon having come to a formal resolution to try, by actual experiment, whether, and how far, worldly pursuits, possessions, and pleasures were capable of making man truly happy, had set himself deliberately to the task of going the round of them all. This is not a very likely supposition, and there is nothing whatever to support it either in this book itself, or in the Scripture record of Solomon's life. It is much more natural and reasonable to conclude that in following the course which this book describes, he had no j)reconcerted plan or purpose at all : but was simply giving way to the varying impulses of his own carnal tastes and wayward will. Having suffered himself to be drawn away and enticed by the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, from the paths of piety and holiness, he did, in point of fact, make trial of what earthly things could do to confer happiness, but not by any means in the way of systematically following out any scheme previously arranged for that end. He was not seeking to solve any great general question. He was simply following the bent of his own mind, impelling him, in a season of backsliding and forgetful - ness of God, now in one direction, now in another. But God had a purpose in all this, though Solomon had none. He suf- fered his erring servant thus "to labour in the very fire," and to " weary himself for very vanity," in order to bring him back from these broken cisterns that could hold no water, to the true and olily fountain of living waters — that is to Himself. And when, through the abundant mercy of God, this divine and gra- cious purpose had been at length accomj^lished, Solomon was moved by the Holy Spirit to turn his own experience to account for the spiritual good of others. It was not, in other words, be- fore the devious course described in this book began, but after that course had come to an end, that Solomon was led to per- 44 THE preacher's LIFE. ceive the importance of tlie lesson it was fitted to teach, and proceeded, under the guidance of inspiration, to set that lesson down in this truly precious portion of the Word of God. There is an obvious and inherent probability in this view of the subject, which can hardly fail to commend it to the thought- ful and dispassionate mind. According to this view, the book of Ecclesiastcs is rightly regarded as a discourse upon the chief /good; as aiming to show that there is no happiness for man in a state of estrangement from God. But, on the other hand, ac- cording to this view, it is altogether a mistake to suppose that the career of worldliuess which the book records was the result of any preconcerted plan, as if Solomon had said; — ' I shall give the world a full and fair trial ; I shall put all its resources to the test, and see what they are worth :' — and had then, with a sort of philosophic calmness and impartiality, tried first one thing and then another. Although this supposition seems to lie at the bottom of many commentaries on the book of Ecclesiastcs, it needs only to be distinctly stated, in order to be rejected as utterly at variance with reason and the very natui^e of things. In wT:iting this book, Solomon was looking back on the various incidents in his o^vn history to which it refers, from a totally different point of view from that in which he regarded them at the time they actually occurred. Now he sees them in the light which is thrown back upon them from his new position as an humble penitent ^vho has been awakened to his folly and his sin, and has returned from his backsliding to the God from whom he had gone astray. They have now a meaning to his mind which they had not before, because God's design in permitting him to run that wild career has now dis- closed itself to his spiritually enlightened eye. Now, accord- ingly, he can see an order and a plan, where, in so far as he was himself concerned, there was no order or plan at all. And while it is most important, and indeed indispensable, to have this fact distinctly in view, in order to understand the main scope of the book, and the great lessons it is intended to teach, we must THEORY OF HIS ERRING COURSE. 45 never lose sight of the other fact already noticed — that in be- taking himself to one pursuit or pleasure after another as the book describes, Solomon had, at the time, no other object in view than simj^ly to gratify the wish which at the moment was uppermost in his mind. If we forget this, we shall inevitably fail in the true interpretation of the particular incidents that will come before us. In a word, we shall not succeed in accu- rately tracing and explaining this most instructive portion of Solomon's history, unless we realize his position and state of mind at the time he was actually passing through it. Seen from this, the direct and natural point of view, things will come out in their own proper form and colour; and with the facts of the history thus placed distinctly and correctly before us, there will be less difficulty in arriving at the great truths they em- body, and at the vitally important lessons they are fitted to teach. It is, then, as following this method of studying the jmssage at present before us, that we have arrived at that particular view of it which has been already briefly indicated. In other words, we regard what is here described as the natural result, in the case of a mind like Solomon's, of that pride of knowledge to which he had been tempted to give way. '' 3£]iQwledge puffeth up," an inspired apostle tells us (1 Cor. viii. 1), and Solo- mon was not proof against this vain-glorious spirit, fed and fos- tered as it was l^y the "thousand tongues that were continually sounding his praise. Gifted with such lofty intelligence, what may he not hope to achieve in the way of putting right what- ever is wrong in this disordered world? We know how the pride of knowledge works in our own day — how it persuades our sceptics to think that their science and philosophy are about to put an end to all the evils which afflict humanity, and to bring on the true millennium. Ignorance they assume to be the real and only cause of either suffering or crime. Let juster ■ views of the laws of nature, of political science, of personal and social well-being, become prevalent, and all will be well. Let 46 THE preacher's LIFE. men only eat of this tree of knowledge and they shall be as gods. Solomon had eaten of it more largely than any of his fellows, and his flatterers told him every day that he had become as a god. Prond of his acknowledged pre-eminence, he will now show what his wisdom can achieve. He will be the enlightener and the benefactor of his age. He will correct the errors, and reform the abnses, and remove or ameliorate the miseries of his day. With this end in view, " I gave," says he, "my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done nnder heaven." This evidently did not mean that he retired into his study, and shut himself up among his books. No ; but rather that carrying along with him the knowledge or wisdom which his previous studies had supplied, he went forth, armed with it, to observe the actual condition of men in the world around him. In the light of this wisdom he applied him- self, with his utmost energy, to seek and search out the whole workings of private and public life — to see how it fared wdth men in their various places and pursuits — to observe how they were employed, and what profit they had of their labour. On all sides he found men toiling after one thing or another. The fact was obvious and irresistible that " this sore travail hath God given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith." And what had Solomon accomplished by surveying it all? "I have seen" said he, describing the result of it, "all the works that are done under the sun ; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit." I have seen much that is humiliating — much that is t / painful — much that is altogether out of joint — but I have found myself impotent to amend it. " That which is crooked cannot be made straight : and that which is wanting cannot be num- bered." I have been compelled to acknowledge my impotence, and to leave things just as they were. The ordinations of Provi- dence and the perversity of human nature liave proved too strong for me. All my wisdom and all my knowledge have been of no avail to regenerate the world. Smarting under this feeling of disappointment, and thus HIS DISAPPOINTMENTS. 47 thrown back upon himself, he retires within the deep recesses of his own bosom, and thus describes the thoughts that passed through his 023pressed and troubled mind — "I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly." As if he had said — ' I have employed all my laboriously gathered knowledge, and all my superior ac- quirements and powers; and, searching into the state of things in the world around me, I have seen both wisdom and folly extensively at work — prudent men labouring in one way, and madmen indulging their extravagances in another : but I have not been able either to correct the mischief done by the one class, or to insure the success merited by the other. My larger knowledge and deeper study of these things have ended , in nothing but in the blasting of my hopes and in the grieving of my heart.' " I perceived that this also," this superior wis- dom and knowledge of mine, when thus employed, "is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." If he knew more of institutions and of men than any of his contemporaries — if he had looked deeper into the whole condition of humanity than they — it had only served to leave him under a more distressing and humili- ating sense of man's pitiable state. It had but shown him this — that all his boasted wisdom and all his boasted greatness were no match for the countless errors and evils that prevail in this fallen world. In itself considered it was a great and noble enter- prise which Solomon, in the pride of his power and wisdom, had taken in hand ; but prosecuted as it had been, in reliance on his own might and his own prudence alone, and without any regard to the grace and power of God, it necessarily terminated' in a total failure. Not thus could the face of this guilty world be renewed : not thus could the sorrows that afflict the human heart be di-iven away : not thus could the wrongs and evils 48 THE preacher's life. which abound in society be brought to an end. Satan is not to be charmed out of his fatal dominion over our fallen race by the wise men of this world, charm they never so wisely. Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts ! Such is our view of this passage. The construction usually put upon it — and which supposes it to refer to a period in which Solomon had given himself up to severe and laborious study as a means of gaining happiness — is altogether forced and unnatural : as little in keeping with the probabilities of the case as with the statements of the passage itself. Study was no new thing with Solomon. Intellectual pursuits had been his familiar occupation for years. He did not need to have recourse to them now in order to find out what they could do for the happiness of man. Nor is the language employed that which is fitted to describe any such line of things. Its whole tone and bearing savour, not of the closet but of the busy world. It was not books, but men, wherewith the mind of Solomon was evidently at this period engaged. " The things" — that is, the works — done under the sun were what he had given his heart to seek and to search out; and the practical inefficiency of mere human wisdom, as a means of rectifying the disorders of humanity, of making straight that which was crooked, or of supplying that which was awanting, seems to have been the disappointing fact, the discovery of which made all his great acquirements appear to be nothing better than vanity, and their exercise to be only " vexation of spirit." Solomon's heart had begun to be turned away from God. His great estate, and the wisdom which he had gotten, more than all they that had been before him, had been lifting him up in his own eyes, and tempting him to forget his dependence on the Author of all good. In that course of defection on which he had now unhappily entered, he did not all at once rush into the excesses of sin. Its first movements bore about them some- thing of the character and complexion of his former and better HIS FRUITLESS TOIL. 49 days. It is still his desire and purpose to promote tlie welfare of liis jDeople, but it is no longer in God's own way that he is seeking to do it. In other times it was to God he looked to give him an understanding heart to judge his people, and to discern between good and bad. But now, in the pride of his high attainments, he has come to think that he needs no other help than his own, and is accordingly making flesh his arm, and suffering his heart to depart from the Lord. He will be, as before, the patriotic prince, the wise and righteous ruler, the friend and father of his people ; but it is now not in God's strengiih, but in his own that he is to execute his high trust, and it is not God, but himself that is to have the glory. He makes the trial honestly and laboriously, to grapple with the evils he knows to exist, and which he has been at pains to study ; but his efforts are expended in vain. Human selfishness, and human folly, and human depravity are too stubborn to bend before any influence he can bring to bear upon them j and he retires baflled and sickened, and sad at heart from the field. V He has found his much worldly wisdom to be only a source of much grief, and that in increasing unsanctified knowledge, he had been but increasing sorrow. Let us rejoice that One has arisen who is greater than Solo- mon, and who also has given His heart to seek and search out by wisdom — by a divine and infinite wisdom — all things that are done under heaven. He, too, has seen the sore travail which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised there- with — how the earth has been cursed for sinful man's sake, and how laboriously he eats of it in the sweat of his brow — how man wearies himself amid toils and cares which, after all, leave him as unsatisfied as ever. But, unlike the literal Solomon, this mightier son of David, this more glorious King over Israel, has found out a way whereby that which is crooked can be made straight, and that which is wanting can be numbered. The Lord Jesus Christ has come down from heaven to look upon this fallen world. He has come, not to condemn it but to save it, and 50 THE preacher's LIFE. tins great work He has accomplished by the blood of His cross. He has redeemed us from the curse under which we groaned, by himself bearing that curse for us ; and there is, therefore, now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. A sinful nature was that crooked thing which no device of human wisdom could make straight. Human science and philosophy, neither in Solomon's days nor in ours, have ever been able to erect the bent form of fallen and degraded humanity, or to supply the felt wants of a consciously guilty soul. But He Avho is the power of God, and the wisdom of God, has achieved this blessed triumph for man. By His atoning sacrifice He makes reconciliation for iniquity j by His infinite merits. He secures for us a title to heaven; and by the regenerating and sanctifying grace of his Holy Spirit, He rescues our moral and spiritual nature from the dominion of Satan and sin, and restores us to the lost image of God. In going on from the first to the second chapter of this book, we perceive at once that we have entered on an entirely new stage of Solomon's career. If, in the first act of this most instructive drama, we found him involving himself to no purpose in the cares of this life, we now find him, in the second, still more hopelessly and iojuriously entangled in the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other things. *^'j[n his former movement he came out in the character of a philosophical jDhilanthropist, bent on rectifying, by the devices of mere human wisdom, the disorders which afilict society, and on putting an end to the wrongs and sufferings so prevalent among mankind. In that attempt, by his own confession, he had utterly failed. All his boasted statesmanship and science, and all the resources of his regal authority and power combined, had proved unequal to the task. In spite of all the jmins and labour he had bestowed upon it, little or nothing had been accomplished. Things remained very much as they were. "^ That which Avas crooked could not be made straight, and that which was wanting could not be num- bered. The "sore travail" given to the sons of men to be ■ BECOMES A MAN OF PLEASURE. 51 exercised there witli — life's manifold difficulties, and distresses, and evils — were not to be charmed away by any contrivances which the wisdom of this world could supply. The discovery was a very humbling and painful one for Solomon to make. It mor- tified his pride, and it wounded his benevolent feelings. What was the worth of his superior knowledge, if it served only to acquaint him with acts of injustice which it could not enable him to redress, and with miseries which it could not teach him how to cure 1 We do not wonder, therefore, to find him retiring from this fruitless contest, sickened and sad at heart. But we are curious to learn what he will do next. Will this rebuke, which his vain confidence in the arm of flesh has received, suffice to show him the error of his way in suffering, as he is now doing, his heart to depart from the Lord ? Will this palpable defeat and bitter disappointment bring him to a better mind ? We might have wished and hoped that it would ; but so speedy a return from his backsliding career would not have furnished the materials for so large and lasting a lesson as Solomon's eventful history was destined to convey. He must go farther, and fare still worse in his devious course, before he can be brought to abandon it. That jierilous influence which, in the midst of his unrivalled prosperity, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, had gradually acquired over his whole heart and mind, is not to be so easily shaken off". He has failed to gain the satisfaction which he seeks in one direction ; but he will try another, in which he is fain to persuade himself that success will be much easier and more secure. " I said in my heart," he tells us, describing his next experiment, " Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure." Why should I burden myself with cares which it is so utterly useless to bear? Why should I vex myself about misfortunes and mischiefs which I have not the means to remedy] Let me fling care away ; let me escape from these sad scenes and serious thoughts, and let me enjoy myself amid the gaieties and convi- vialities of social life. 52 THE preachee's life. We cannot doubt that a court so numerous and so brilliant as that of Solomon must have contained ample materials for this sort of indulgence. Men of influence far inferior to his, fiod it easy to surround themselves with associates in keeping with their own wishes and tastes. Princes especially who — like our own Charles II. — are bent on giving the rein to their pleasures, and on laughing care away, soon succeed in crowding their splendid saloons and gathering to their luxurious banquets the proper kind of guests. The wits and buffoons of the day — the men whose peculiar faculty it is "to set the table in a roar" — would gladly come when a king called. It is not uninteresting to notice, however, that this particular form of pleasure seems very soon to have palled on Solomon's taste. Mere jesting and ^^"^ foolish talking could not long satisfy a mind like his. Such giddy and senseless mirth speedily revolted him. "I said of laughter, It is mad : and of mirth. What doeth it 1 " Referring to the same subject farther on in this book (vii. 6), he compares the laughter of the fool to the crackling of thorns under a pot — emitting a bright blaze for the moment, and suddenly going out in darkness. There must be great shallowness, or hopeless levity, about the mind that can be contented with so contemptible a species of enjoyment. A mind of any depth or strength cannot avoid being both ashamed and angry with itself at having given way, for however brief a period, to so unworthy a method of consuming time. Not, indeed, that innocent mii'th, in its own place and measure, is to be repudiated and condemned. As Solomon himself elsewhere testifies (iii. 4), there is a time to laugh as well as a time to weep. That heart must want some of the best chords of feeling that cannot sympathize in the spontaneous hilarity of youth — that cannot deliglit in its spontaneous and exuberant joy. Our natiire, indeed, has been so constituted by its infinitely wise and beneficent Maker, that occasionally to unbrace the mind from severer labours and sterner thoughts is in some sense necessary, in order to pre- serve it in a sound and healthful condition. It is not, how- COMBINES WISDOM WITH FOLLY. 53 ever, of sucli regulated mirtli that Solomon intends here to speak. It is not mirtli as the accident, or the occasional ac- companiment of life, but mirth as the end and object of life, which his words condemn. And especially, it is that unmean- ing and extravagant mirth Vv^hich seems to involve an utter for- getfulness of our rational nature, and of our condition as moral and responsible beings. Of such laughter it is emphatically true to say, that " it is mad ; " and of such mirth to ask, *' What doethitr' But, though soon v/eary of such empty and boisterous merri- ment, he had, as yet, no idea of giving up this chase after plea- sure. " I sought in mine heart," he goes on to say, continuing this remarkable history, "to give myself unto wine — yet ac- quainting 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." This is a very remarkable statement. Solomon did not mean to be a mere vulgar, commonplace sensualist. He would freely indulge his grosser appetites, but he would not be theii' slave. He would not allow them to carry him too far. His was to be a / refined and regulated licentiousness. His j)assions were to be kept under the control of his reason. He would " give himself unto wine," which here, evidently, is put for what are called . the pleasures of the table — " banquetings, revellings, and such like" — and, j^erbaps, for sensual delights in general. He will indulge in these. He will frequent the society of those boon companions who find their so-called happiness in these jovial feasts. But, at the same time, he will keep up his acquaintance with books and scientific men. If his evenings are to be devoted to the wine-cujD, the song, the dance, the grovelling debauch, and to such loose company as these pursuits never fxil to bring together, his" mornings shall still find him in the closet, or the library, or the council-chamber, occupied with his studies and his senators, and his public and political affairs — with everything, in short, that belon2;s to a higher and more intellectual walk of 54? THE preacher's life. life. By tliis singular combination of wisdom and folly — this strange compromise between his animal and his rational nature V — he thinks, at length, ta.iiiscover the true middle course in which the greatest amount of absolute enjoyment can be real- ized. In other words, and as he himself expresses it, he thinks, in this way, to learn '' what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their Hfe." Thousands and tens of thousands, since Solomon's time, have done the same thing. Examples of it, only too numerous, it is to be feared, might easily be found among the cultivated men of the present day. To such men, when not under the influence of real godliness, there is something very enticing in such a way of life. To become mere drunkards or profligates would be to forfeit their position in society, and to be utterly degraded even in their own eyes. But to be men of pleasure and men of science at the same time — to give themselves unto wine, and still to be acquainting their hearts with wisdom, prosecuting their scientific researches or literary studies, — enables them to keep up a certain kind of self-respect, which blinds them to the disgracefulness of their immoral habits, and which imparts a certain air of usefulness and honour to a life that is at bottom utterly corrupt and depraved. We hear it often argued that mere intellectual cultivation would suffice to banish both vice and crime ; and that if only our working-men had access to that kind of knowledge which refines the taste and invigorates the mental powers, they would inevitably become virtuous and good. The case of Solomon might surely suffice to show that this is a very rash and foolish conclusion; and his case, as has been already noticed, is only one out of thousands in every age of the world. It is a fact, notorious to every one at all acquainted with the subject, that oftentimes the very men who have been foremost in the ranks of literary and scientific fame, or in their attainments in the aesthetic arts, have also been the most remarkable for the profligacy of their private lives. Not out of HIS GREAT PUBLIC WORKS. 55 the head, but out of the lieart, are the issues of life ; and only when the heart has been renewed by the grace of God, will the life be pure and holy. In following out this new course on which he had entered, Solomon was at pains to surround himself with all the choicest beauties of nature and the most magnificent productions of art. " I made me great works," he goes on to say ; " I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits : I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bring- eth forth trees ; " or, as it might be rendered, " the grove flour- ishing with trees." Of the great works here spoken of, it seems probable that a considerable part may have been connected with the general improvement of his kingdom, rather than with his own mere personal convenience or royal state. In the first book of Kings and the second of Chronicles, which contain the records of Solo- mon's reign, we read that " he built Tadmor in the wilderness, and all the store cities which he built in Hamath. Also he built Beth-horon the upper, and Beth-horon the nether, fenced cities, with walls, gates, and bars ; and Baalath, and all the store cities that Solomon had, and all the chariot cities, and the cities of the horsemen, and all that Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and throughout all the land of his dominions" (2 Chron. viii. 4-6). These were gretit works, and the execution of many of them was, no doubt, dictated by an enlightened policy, as being fitted to promote the security and the general good of the realm. It was, we may presume, with a special reference to such statesman-like achievements as these that he spoke of himself as still, in the midst of all the jovialties and follies connected with his pursuit of pleasure, acquainting " his heart with wisdom." To aggrandize his king- dom was, indeed, only another way of aggrandizing himself. It was another way of gratifying that self-idolatry, which the con- sciousness of his great attainments and the flattery of his cour- 56 THE preacher's life. tiers had nursed into a passion, and in giving way to which apparently, his departure from God began. He was ambitious of the world's applause. His aim was to outshine in riches and worldly renown all his contemporary kings. The wisdom, accordingly, which he continued to cultivate, was not the wis- dom that is from above — that heavenly wisdom, the beginning and essence of which is the fear of God. It was the wisdom of this world which alone, at this period of his career, seemed to be of any value in his eyes — the wisdom which looks closely to those things that are seen and temporal, but is utterly blind to the things that are unseen and eternal. In the exercise of this mundane wisdom he reared store cities and fitted out fleets, and immensely increased the material wealth and prosperity of his kingdom. A great part of the commerce of the world was made to flow through it. By means of his friendly alliance with Tyre, the great merchant-city of the West — by his own out-port of Eloth or Ezion-geber, on the Hed Sea — and by the caravans which communicated, through his skilfully placed city of Tad- mor in the wilderness, v/ith Babylon and Nineveh, and the gi-eat cities and kingdoms of the East, the land of Israel became, under Solomon, the very highway of the nations, the very heart and centre of the world's trade ; a trade which, after the lapse of 3000 years, is again, in our own day, rapidly returning to those ancient channels which Solomon opened; and by the opening of which " the weight of gold that came to Solomon, in one year, was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold. Beside that he had of the merchantmen, and of the traffic of the spice-merchants, and of all the kings of Arabia, and of the governors of the country" (1 Kings x. 14, 15). But while Solomon was thus playing the part of the states- man aud political economist, he was not less assiduously playing the part of the luxurious man of pleasure. His houses and vine- yards, and orchards and gardens, and pools of water, were all designed to display his own magnificence and to minister to his own gratification. Nothing could exceed the splendour of these HIS CARNIVAL. 57 royal retreats to which, we may suppose, he was wont to resort when he desired to " lay hold on folly," and, at a distance from the cares and distractions of his capital, to give himself up to jollity and mirth, with the gay and dissolute companions of these festive hours. " All king Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold ; none were of silver : it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon" (1 Kings x. 21). Nothing was awanting that could either flatter his vanity or gratify his taste, or give zest and variety to his sensual enjoyments. "I got me," he says, " servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house ; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me; 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." / In a word, he made for himself a kind of sensual paradise. His palaces shone with pearl, and ivory, and gold ; their stately halls were lined with guards and liveried menials ; their tables groaned with every luxury which sea or land could yield ; the eye was dazzled with the costly attire of the noble and princely guests J the ear ravished with the strains of choicest music that ever and anon resounded through the long corridors, or floated up from beneath the open windows, as the royal banquet went on. The harp and the viol, the tabret and pipe, and wine, were in their feasts ; but they regarded not the work of the Lord, neither considered the operation of his hands. Had man been the mere creature of a day, made for no higher a destiny than to eat, and drink, and die, such a way of life might well, perhaps, have been regarded as the very consummation of human happi- ness. It is a way of life which many continue to pursue, and which many more who have not the means of doing so, regard with envy. When those in humbler life look on from a distance at such a scene, they are apt to sigh over the hard fortune that excludes them from it. They can hardly conceive of care or 58 THE preachek's life. sorrow, or sense of want, as ever by possibility finding entrance into it. Let those wbo may be disjDOsed to clierish such a feel- ing, listen to the testimony of one wlio bad quaffed this cup even when it was filled to the brim — who was not simply a sharer in the delights of that envied condition of things, but who was himself the lord and master of it all — the very centre around which all this gaiety and grandeur revolved. He had been at pains to gather all this magnificence and all these scenes of enjoyment around him. It was for him especially they had all been prepared. And, now that the preparation was com- plete — now that the fairy scene to which he had long been looking forward was at length realized — now that the scaffolding had been taken down, and that the palace of pleasure stood out, in all its sensuous splendour, before his eyes — now that he had taken his seat on its lofty throne of " ivory, overlaid with the best gold," and could say,"without fear of contradiction or chal- lenge, " So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem : also my wisdom remained with me : And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them ; I withheld not my heart from any joy" — now, in a word, that Solomon had fully tested and seen what all this array of worldly wealth, and all these means of luxurious self-indulgence could do for his happiness, this is the conclusion to which he comes — " 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." V Let it be observed that this feeling of disappointment — this painful sense of emptiness and unprofitableness which oppressed the mind of Solomon, — is not to be imputed either to any want of success in obtaining the means of enjoyment which he sought, or to any incapacity or indisposition on his part to take the fullest use of them for that end. He tells us expressly that whatsoever his eyes desired he kept not from them. His riches and popularity and power placed everything he could wish to HIS CARNAL ENTHUSIASM. 59 liave within liis reach, and he grudged no pains or cost to secure it. One whose wealth was less abundant might have seen and coveted many things which he could not afford to procure ; and one whose spirit was less munificent might have longed to pos- sess what he was too parsimonious to give the necessary price to obtain. There were no such obstacles in the way of the king of Israel when he resolved to prove his heart with mirth and to enjoy pleasure. Nor, on the other hand, was his purpose marred by anything of that cold, cynical, unsocial misanthropy which positively disqualifies some men from enjoying anything what- ever. Solomon threw his whole heart and soul into the pursuits and pleasures to which he had thus, for the time, devoted him- ^'self " His heart rejoiced in all his labour." While it was yet ' m in proojress, while it was still fresh and new, it seemed to be the / very thing he sought — even "that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life." His glowing fancy kindled in the prospect of realizing its own brilliant schemes; his fine taste luxuriated among those works of art and those beauties of nature which the architect, and the painter, and the sculptor, and the horticulturist, and the landscape-gardener, were accumulating around him. His self-importance, his love of show, his desire to astonish and dazzle the multitude, were fed and flattered by all this gathering magnificence of his royal state; while, at the same time, his vast stores of knowledge, his strong social sympathies, his ability to shine in every kind of society in which he chose to mingle, all combined to carry him eagerly along in this pleasure -seeking course, and to give it a zest and a relish entirely to his mind. Never, therefore, could the same experiment be made in circum- - stances more favourable to its complete success. And yet it en- tirely failed. As the novelty of such scenes and entertainments wore away, — when familiarity had begun to make them tame and dull, — they lost their power to please. Instead of exciting and exhilarating his mind, they now only -wearied and oppressed it. There was nothing in them to impart real or permanent 60 THE PEEACHER'S LIFE. satisfaction. When the gay company had dispersed; when the splendid pageant had passed away ; and when, amid the silence and the solitude of his own chamber, worn out and exhausted with the veiy efforts he had been making to be merry — his head throbbing with the fever of his sensual feast, and his heart aching with the reproaches of an accusing conscience — when, in these circumstances, he set himself to reflect on all the works that his hands had wrought, and on all the labour that he had laboured to do, we do not wonder to hear him confessing, with a sigh, that all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and that it left no profit behind. If only they would tell the truth, there can be no question that the very same acknowledgment would be heard issuing from the lips of every individual of that immense and multi- farious crowd who are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Little do mere on-lookers know what an amount of real wretchedness often lurks unseen and out of sight beneath the gaieties of the world. The first lesson, indeed, which this in- structive record of the experience of Solomon should teach, is that of contentment with our outward estate. When men's worldly means are limited and their lot obscure, they are some- times tempted to conclude that, by a harsh and adverse decree of Providence, happiness has been placed beyond their reach. The case of Solomon may surely suffice to correct this error. If it proves anything at all, it proves this, that happiness is no necessary adjunct of wealth and worldly greatness. Never, perhaps, at any period of his life was Solomon so truly miserable as when he had gathered silver and gold, and the peculiar trea- sure of kings, in such store as to have increased more than all that were before him in Jerusalem. Happiness is not the pecu- liar prerogative of any one grade of society, or of any one con- dition of life. It is not the station or the outward circumstances of the man that determines the amount of his happiness : it is the state of his soul. We have often thought of a beautiful evidence and example of this truth with which we became A CONTRAST. 61 acquainted in tlie very outset of our ministry, in a quiet coun- try parish then under our pastoral care. The person to whom we allude was a feeble old woman, one of the paupers of the parish. Her single room was small and dark: she was bent nearly double with the infirmities of age : she was a solitary creature who could claim kindred with no human being around her : she dwelt alone. To see her cowering over her scanty fire in a cold winter day, or tottering across the crazy floor of her dingy dwelling, or creeping laboriously up the stairs that led to it, with her little bag of meal or her pitcher of water from the well — a more apparently pitiable object could hardly be found. What a contrast to Solomon, blazing in scarlet and gold upon his ivory throne, or carousing with his gay com- panions amid the oriental magnificence of the house of the forest of Lebanon ! But, if the outward contrast was great, the inward contrast was greater still. The peace of God, that passeth all understanding, kept her heart and mind through Christ Jesus; and no language but that of cheerful contentment and tranquil happiness was ever heard issuing from her lips. How often have we found her, in a gloomy winter day, waiting eagerly for the heisfht of noon, when the sun was wont to look down for a brief interval through an opening in the hill above, with her large open Bible laid out in the little window-sill, ready to receive the augmented stream of light that would enable her dim eye to read some cherished portion of that blessed Word upon which the Lord had caused her, like the father of Solomon, to hope. In poverty, in weakness, in solitude, with nothing but her Bible and her God, she was truly and habitually happy. If she ever thought of the difierence between her worldly lot and that of the rich and the great, it was only to give utterance to the beautiful sentiment of the Psalmist: Lord, "thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased" (Psalm iv. 7). Blessed, truly, is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is ! If these things be so, what folly are those men guilty of who 62 THE preacher's life. spend their days in laboriously laying up treasure for them- selves, and are not rich towards God — who are so busy about gaining the world, that they have no time and no thought to give to the saving of their souls? Solomon was far more suc- cessful in making that kind of acquisition than they can ever hope to be; nor can their wealth ever purchase a tithe of the worldly grandeur or worldly pleasure for them which Solomon's wealth procured for him ; and yet, so long as he made the gold his hope, and the most fine gold his confidence, it yielded him no profit — it was productive of nothing but vanity and vexation of spirit. " Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped trea- sure together for the last days" (James v. 1-3). " But godli- ness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation • and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil : which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things ; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight \^ of faith, lay hold on eternal life!" (1 Tim. vi. G-12). It is no unusual thing, indeed, for men to be disappointed and sickened with the world. It fails to yield them the satisfaction they counted on : they feel the heavy burden of its cares : their pride is wounded by its neglect : their kindlier feelings are hurt by its coldness and ingratitude : their sense of honour is outraged by its want of truth ; and, in looking forward to the future, their fears are alarmed by the painful evidences that are daily multi- plying around them of its utter instability. But, alas ! though Ills MANY IMITATERS. G3 tlie conviction thus often forces itself upon tliem that all is vanity, and that there is no real, abiding, satisfying profit in all the labour they have been taking under the sun, how few, compara- tively, lay this salutary lesson to heart ! Like Solomon, in the days of his backsliding, they may turn from one earthly object or worldly pursuit to another, but it is still to the things which are beneath they continue obstinately to- cleave. They have been long and laboriously hewing out one cistern; and just when they hoped to see it filled with the water that was to quench that thirst for happiness which is the instinct of our nature, it is broken by some unexpected stroke, and falls to pieces in their hands ; or they find some flaw in it through which all the expected enjoyment escapes : in a word, they find it can hold no water. And yet, no sooner is the discovery made, than they address themselves, like Solomon of old, to the hewing out of another cistern, destined, as in his case, to prove equally valueless as all the others they have already tried. Thus do mul- titudes go on from year to year, until at length that sense of want, that feeling of vanity and unprofitableness which impelled them for a time to long for something different and something better, itself gradually dies away. They become reconciled to these disappointments, and are willing to take the world on its own terms. It has often deceived them, and it has never afforded them the happiness they looked for ; but, like the bul- lock accustomed to the yoke, they grow callous and insensible to the vexations that once galled and fretted them. And thus they go on in the dull round of the world's ways until they are taken away from it for ever, to sink into the abyss of a lost eternity. " If any man thirst," said the Lord Jesus, " let him come unto me and drink" (John vii. 37). "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread ? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear and come unto me : hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even 64 THE preacher's life. the sure mercies of David" (Isaiah Iv. 2, 3). " Seek not what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God ; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Luke xii. 29-31). HIS REFLECTIONS. 65 CHAPTER IV. THE PEEACHER REVIEWS HIS ERRING CAREER, AND POINTS OUT THE LESSONS IT SHOULD TEACH. " And I turned myself to iDehold wisdom, and madness, and folly : for what can tlie man do that cometh after the king ? tven that which hath been already done. Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head ; hut the fool walketh in darkness : and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all. " 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. For iliere 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 foi-gotten : and how dieth the wise man ? as the fool. Therefore I hated life ; because the work that is wrought vinder the sun is grievous imto me : for all is vanity and vexation of spirit. 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. 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 sliewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity. " Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun. 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 gi-eat evil. For what hath man of all his laboiu-, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured mider the sun ? For all his days are sor- rows, and his ti-avaU grief ; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity. " There is notliing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he shoTild make his soul enjoy good in his labom-. This also I saw, that it icas from the hand of God. For who can eat, or who else can hasten hereunto, more than I ? For GiaC giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy : but to the sinner he giveth travaU., 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."— Eccles. ii. 12-26. SOLOMON is here reviewing that devious and downward course already described, and which for many years he had pursued when seeking his happiness away from God. Two distinct stages of that course have come under our notice. Setting out as a sort of philosophical philanthropist, he seems to have thought to reform all the abuses of society, and to remedy all the ills that 66 A RETROSPECT. afflict human life, by bringing to bear upon tliem tbe resources of bis own idolized wisdom. This boastful enterprise, after much pains and labour had been bestowed upon it, led, as we have seen, to nothiug but bitter disappointment. That which was crooked could not, by all his efforts and ingenuity, be made straight ; and that which was wanting could not be numbered. Things went on very much as they had done before. Human selfish- ness and human depravity were not to be charmed into sub- mission by the wisdom of this world. His deeper search into the actual condition of humanity served only to reA^eal to him disorders he could not rectify, and evils which all his skill and science were impotent to cure. He found, in short, that in much wisdom is much grief, and that he that increaseth know- ledge iucreaseth sorrow. Sick of this fruitless toil, he deter- mined to abandon it altogether as equally hopeless and vexa- tious, and to consult for the future only his own personal gratification. His next movement, accordingly, was a chase after mere enjoyment. He gave the rein to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, and at the same time by w^ay of imparting a certain refinement and dignity to this iguoble career, he still acquainted himself with wisdom. He continued, that is to say, to cultivate intellectual pursuits, so as to be at once the student and the sensualist, the philoso- i:)her and the man of pleasure in one. This new experiment succeeded no better than the other. After trying it in every conceivable form, and with all the means at his disposal which his boundless wealth, his high rank, and his immense acquire- ments supplied, it yielded nothing but vanity and vexation of sjDirit. It left nothing behind but a painful sense of weariness and self-dissatisfaction. Precisely at this point the passage at present before us comes in. Solomon is here looking back upon these past proceedings, and telling us in what light they subsequently appeared to his own mind. There is, perhaps, some reason to doubt whether this retrospect includes both of the stages of his history, which have just been briefly alluded WISDOM .IND FOLLY COMPARED. 67 to, or only the second. " I turned myself," he tells us, in enter- ing upon that train of sad and humbling reflections which the verses now under consideration record, " to behold wisdom and to behold madness and folly." Understanding wisdom in the sense which evidently is here intended — understanding it not as the wisdom that cometh from above, but as the wisdom of this world, the wisdom that consists in mere human sagacity and secular science — it may truly enough be said that while this wisdom was the leading characteristic of his first experiment, madness and folly were the chief attributes of the second. At the same time, it is to be borne in mind that both of these features — not the madness and folly only, but the wisdom too — were designedly embraced in the second stage of his course, as a wanderer from the ways of God ; and therefore that, even by itself alone, that second and strange chapter of this eventful history might suffice to furnish materials for the twofold theme on which Solomon is now preparing to discourse. Upon the whole, however, it seems the more natural conclusion that the course on which he now turned back this searching look, included all which the foregoing context describes. He had now made trial of what the cultivation and the exercise of his intellectual nature could accomplish in the way of securing true happiness; and he had also made trial of what could be achieved by proving his heart with mirth, and giving himself up to animal pleasures. He had made the experiment in both ways, under advantages which, in the same degree, few, if any, could ever hope to enjoy. '■For what can the man do that cometh after the king?" Who can pretend to surpass, or even to rival Solomon in mental ca- pacity or acquired knowledge, or in facilities for bringing all his high intellectual endowments to bear upon any scheme of either social improvement or personal aggrandizement in which he might think fit to engage ? Or, on the other hand, if it be the delights of sense that are in question, who is it who can expect to surround himself with such a paradise of pleasure as the gay and splendid monarch who builded him houses and planted 68 A EETEOSPECT. him vineyards, and made Mm gardens and orchards, and pools of water : who gathered him also silver and gold, and the pecu- liar treasui-e of kings : who gat him men-singers and women- singers, and the delights of the sons of men : who withheld not his heart from any joy 1 If, therefore, human wisdom on the one hand, or madness and folly on the other, be competent to pro- vide a satisfying portion for man, it is impossible but that Solomon must have obtained it. He tried both, and he did so on very jiurpose to find that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life. He made the trial, moreover, in cii'cumstances immensely more fa- vourable than those in which almost any other of the sons of men can ever hope to be placed. What, then, was the issue? what was the conclusion to which all his elaborate experi- ence conducted him? This is what we are now to hear, and what it deeply concerns us thoroughly to learn and to lay to heart. " Then I saw," he says, " that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness." Although both had disappointed him, he does not confound the one with the other. He is b}'- no means disposed to treat them as equally worthless. Wis- dom, earthly wisdom, had indeed utterly failed to win for him the happiness he sought; but still it was undeniably a far nobler thing than folly. When, for the purpose of instituting a comparison between the two, he recalled the hours he had spent in intellectual pursuits, and then remembered those other and far different hours that had been devoted to "ban- quetings, revellings, and such like," the conclusion was too obvious to be resisted. By the one, his rational nature had been cultivated and improved ; by the other his moral na- ture had been deadened and depraved. In following the dictates of wisdom — earthly wisdom though it was — his men- tal powers had been strengthened, his knowledge had been increased, his means of usefulness had been enlarged, and much real and elevating enjoyment had been imparted to WISDOM EXCELLETH FOLLY. 69 jiis own miDcl. In giving way, on the other hand, to the im- pulses of folly — in consuming days and nights in frivolous mirth, or sensual indulgence — he had only impaired his health, and wasted his time, and degraded his character, and lowered himself even in his own eyes. Reflecting on all this, he now accordingly states the conclusion to which this comparison had brought him. " Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as fur as light excelleth darkness." As light makes all external things manifest, it is the appro- priate emblem of intelligence. " Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun" (Eccles. xi. 7). It is not only grateful to the sense, but pleasing to the mind, by the feeling of confidence and security which its presence inspires. Darkness, on the other hand^ is correspondingly distasteful. It suggests painful ideas of uncertainty, danger, and helplessness. " If any man walk in the day he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night he stumbleth, because there is no light in him" (John xi. 9, 10). Wisdom resembles the light of day; folly resembles the darkness of night. The difference between the two, and the superiority of the one to the other, Solomon still further illus- trates by this pointed remark — " The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walketh in darkness." The mind is the eye of the soul, and when it is informed with wisdom, it is in its true position. It is then like the bodily eye, which, by a beautiful and beneficent arrangement of the Divine Author of our frame, is placed in the head, that from this elevation it may be able to look around, and to embrace an extended view, — like a sentinel upon a watch-tower, — ready to descry danger while it is yet afar off. The mind of the wise man — of the man who has been at pains to cultivate and exercise his intellectual powers — ^whose memory has been stored with knowledge, and whose judgment has been enlarged by study, and sharj^ened by exercise, and matured by reflection — the mind of such a man is in circumstances to eruide him with some measure of 70 A RETKOSPECT. safety through the perils and perplexities of life. His eyes are in his head. He sees where he is going. He can look before him and forecast the future. His acquaintance with men and things enables him to make the best nse of his talents and op- portunities. His sagacity anticipates and discovers dangers before which others fall. His mental culture and capacity make easy to him tasks by which others are overborne, and insure his triumphant success in circumstances that involve his competi- tors in shameful defeat. Whatever may be the career in which he has embarked, wisdom gives him prodigious advantages in pursuing it. The very opposite is the inevitable consequence of giving way to folly. '• The fool walketh in darkness." He is like a man pursuing his journey under the cloud of night. He is continually losing his way^and falling into the ditch. By the fool Solomon evidently means the gay, idle, thoughtless sensualist, intent on his worthless pleasures, and caring about nothing besides. Such a man speedily becomes besotted by his own base habits. Belaxed and enervated by idleness and dissi- pation, his mind loses equally the power and the disjDOsition to apply itself to anything that requires an intellectual effort, or that involves serious thought. The longer he persists in such a course, the more useless and contemptible does he become, until he ends in being nothing else than a nuisance to society and a burden to himself. Such, in substance, is Solomon's estimate of the difference between wisdom and folly; and this estimate is founded not merely on his observation of their effects upon others, but on his personal knowledge and experience of their influence and tendency in his own particular case. And let it be remembered that all the while he is describing, in both instances, a life spent without God. Even in such a life, therefore — a life in which the fear of God has no place — Solomon recognizes great and important diversities. One style of such a life may be, in many respects and for many ends, greatly preferable to another. It is important to remember this, and to keep it distinctly in view, DEFECTIVENESS OF HUMAN WISDOM. 71 in dealing with tlie great subject which Solomon has here in hand. Keligious men are often accused of overlooking it, and of placing the life of the most intelligent, upright, and amiable of the men of the world, on the same level with the life of the most profligate and depraved. There is undoubtedly a differ- ence, broad and palpable, between two such lives and two such classes of men; and it is precisely to this difierence Solomon means to refer, when he says — " I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness." But if we wish to know of how little avail that difference is after all, when it comes to be viewed in the light of God and of eternity, we must not pause _ here, but rather prepare to follow our inspired instructor till he has reached the conclusion of the whole matter. We have heard him describing wherein wisdom and folly ^ differ — let us now hear him describing wherein they are at one. In observing the two, this was not his only inference, that " the wise man's eyes are in his head," whereas " the fool walketh in darkness." " I myself," he adds, " perceived this also, that one event happeneth to them all." Their earthly wisdom, however valuable in its own place, is not an infallible guide, for even he who follows it is nevertheless often found to err. It is not an infallible protection, for he who enjoys it is not safe from adversity and sorrow. His flesh is heir to the same ills as that of the fool. Fortune fails him, friends deceive him, the world ill-uses him, disease assails him, age overtakes and enfeebles him, death drags him down to the grave. Solomon himself was pre- eminently wise. His eyes were in his head, if the eyes of any man ever were. Few men had ever looked so widely or so in- telligently abroad upon the face of nature, or had searched so deeply into the philosophy of human life ; and yet he had found himself as impotent as the senseless and improvident fool to con- trol the course of Providence, or even to determine with any certainty what should be on the morrow. " Then said I in my heart" — then, when this humbling conviction forced itself upon i^ his mind — " as it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to 72 A RETROSPECT. me : and why was I tlieu more wise 1 Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity." We do not understand this statement to mean, that the wise man has no advantage over the fooh This were plainly incon- sistent with what Solomon had said immediately before. In many ways, as has been already sho"vvn in dealing with the preceding verses, the wise man benefits by his wisdom. His prudence, and forethought, and general ability secure for him a respect and consideration which are commonly denied to those who live merely for their own selfish and sensual pleasures. He will usually be found to rise in society while they sink, and to succeed in his undertakings while they fail ; to come, in a worldly sense, to advancement and honour, while they come, in every sense, to shame and ruin. Solomon knew all this : he had seen it exemj)lified a thousand times in the world around him. But still the great fact remained, that the wise man equally as the fool, is liable to numberless adversities, crosses, and disap- pointments, of a kind which, though he can sometimes foresee, he is often powerless to prevent. Providence moves on in its stately march, and ever and anon tramples his best-laid schemes in the dust. To the eye of mere earthly wisdom it seems as if that providence were blind — as if it made no distinctions. Even good men, godly men, are sometimes perplexed by considerations like these. So much at one period did they disturb the mind of David, as almost to have subverted his faith. He was envi- ous of the foolish when he saw the prosperity of the wicked. It seemed as if in vain he had cleansed his heart, and washed his hands in innocency. Profligacy appeared to fare better than piety. His feet were almost gone : his steps had well-nigh slipped. A dark and dreadful scepticism had begun to cast its deadly shadow upon his soul. But a closer study and a larger view of the Lord's works and ways dispelled this gloomy feeling. "When he went into the sanctuary of God, then understood he their end" (Ps. Ixxiii.) Eternity will amply justify the ways of God to man. It is when we limit our view of these ways to time, SOLOMON GROWS QUERULOUS. 73 tliat we mistake their true import ; because we are then looking on what is altogether imperfect and incomplete. Solomon was under this misleading influence when, in his haste and im- patience, he said — Why then was I more wise than the fool ? In so speaking he was causelessly disparaging a valuable gift. In making him wiser than the fool, God had conferred upon Solo- mon a most precious blessing. His larger knowledge and higher intelligence, and his clearer discernment of the true nature and real worth of things, had placed at his disposal means both of gaining and of doing good, Avhich made his position, even in a temporal point of view, unspeakably preferable to that of the fool. It was no reason for underrating his wisdom that it did not raise him above the reach of misfortune — that it could not save him from disappointment, disease, and death. Had his wisdom been rightly improved — had he continued to exercise it on things spiritual and divine, — ^had his great mind been still illumined, as of old, by a light from above, no such petulant complaint, as we are now considering, would ever have proceeded from his lips. It was because his wisdom had become his idol — because^ it had so inflated his pride that in his own eyes he seemed to be as God — because he had been leaning on it, and looking to it, for everything he could need or desire — therefore it was that he now felt so dissatisfied with it. Because a sad and humiliating experience taught him that he was no god after all, but a poor, frail, mortal creature, subject to the same infirmi- ties, and exposed to the same evils which assail the foolishest of men, he was ready to run from one extreme to another, and to .treat almost with scorn those very attainments in which he had so lately gloried. And so it will, and must always, be with every one who ex- pects from mere human wisdom what it can never yield — who dreams that it can make him the author of his own happiness, and render him independent of the grace and mercy of God. So perverted, instead of securing happiness, it will rather con- tribute to take it away. This evidently was the experience of 74 A RETEOSPECT. Solomon, and hence the bitter exclamation — Why was I then more wise ? That veiy wisdom, that superior science and saga- city by which he was so eminently distinguished, only enabled liim the better to perceive how insecure were the possessions, and how hollow were the friendships, and how empty and evanescent were the enjoyments of the world. Shallower or more unreflect- ing minds might see only the glittering surface of things, and grosser and baser natures might find it possible to grovel among sensual j)leasures. It was otherwise with him. His keener e3'e detected the cheat, and his finer sensibilities sj^eedily recoiled with disgust from scenes and pursuits the very remembrance of which covered him with shame. He saw — and almost envied the fool for not seeing it — that, verily every man at his best estate is altogether vanity — that surely every man walketh in a vain show — that surely they are disquieted in vain — that he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them (Psalm xxxix. 5-Q). We do not wonder, therefore, to hear Solomon saying with a sigh, as he thought of these things, that this also is vanity. He had been reviewing the past, when he felt himself driven to this painful conclusion; but the con- clusion was only strengthened and confirmed when he cast his eye forward upon the future. " For," added he, as this addi- tional view of the matter rose up before his mind, " 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." Nothing is more humbling to human pride than the stern fact which these words proclaim. It is not meant, indeed, that such a man as Solomon, considered even simply as a man of the world, was likely to disappear as soon from the memory of after- generations, as any of the gay and giddy crowd who were the companions of his folly. Though no place had belonged to him on the pages of inspiration, or among the people of God, his name nevertheless would, in all probability, have been handed down to a remote posterity. A great mind, even though it be a stranger to the wisdom that cometh from above, cannot live and move VANITY OF WORLDLY FA:SIE. 75 and have its being in this worhl, without leaving some memorials of its presence and power behind. And yet, had Solomon pos- sessed no other wisdom than that of which he is discoursing in the words before ns — the wisdom of intellectual culture, and human science, and statesman-like policy — how little should we have known of him at this hour ! It is to his divine wisdom, and to his place among the prophets and people of God, he is indebted for his enduring and immortal name. What do we know of the wise men of Egypt or Assyria? Little or nothing, save what w^e gather incidentally from the Holy Scriptures. It is chiefly their relation to the indestructible church and Word of the living God, that has saved them from that oblivion w^hich is the lot of all human works and human things. But when Solomon observes that there is " no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever," it is evidently not of the wise man's mere name he designs to speak. The name may be remembered while the man and his works are, to all practical purposes, forgotten. The world goes on just as if he had never been. The space he filled, when alive, was so large — his influence made itself felt in so many ways^his skilful and weighty hand touched and regulated so many of the springs that animate and govern human aflairs, that it seemed as if his death must bring society to a stand. And yet, the grave has scarcely closed over his mortal remains, when the place that knew him knows him no more. As the setting of the midnight moon brings stars into view, whose feebler rays were quenched before, even so does it come to pass that names w^hich the wise man's, while it shone, threw into the shade, now take their place in the social firmament ; and, though the light be less, the world moves on under it, as if none better or brighter had been ever known. '•' Let not, therefore, the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let tlie mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches : but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the 70 A RETROSPECT. oartli : for ia tliese things I delight, saith the Lord" (Jer. ix. 23, 24). He who does not know and understand this — he, in other words, who is ignorant of God, and has no purpose nor desire to be enabled to do those things that please Him, — is destitute of true wisdom, even though, as regards intellectual endowments and secular science, he may be the w^isest of men's sons. Neither by his wisdom, nor by his wealth, could Solo- mon by "any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him that he should still live for ever, and not see corruption." Solomon, as well as the Psalmist, saw this, " that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling-places to all generations : they call their lands after their own names. This their way is their folly" (Psalm xlix. 6—13). It was, in truth, this very sentiment that was filling the dark and de- spairing mind of Solomon w^hen he gave expression to this bitter thought — "And how dieth the wise man? as the fool." Yes; he may suiTound himself with all the appliances of health ; he may breathe the most salubrious air; he may have his winter palace in the sheltered city, and his summers may be spent amid the cool and shady retreats of Lebanon ; he may have the most skilful physicians at his call, and venal courtiers may ])e every day saluting him with the grateful cry — king, live for ever ! But the hour incessantly draws on that must consign him to the tomb ; and when he too, even Solomon the mighty and the wise, must say to corruption, Thou art my father, and to the worm. Thou art my sister and my mother ! Nor is this the last or worst of this humbling story; for, as all his wisdom cannot avail to save him from the same death that overtakes the fool, so neither can it save him from the same judg- ment that is to follow. Alasj his wisdom, instead of then coming to his aid, shall only rise up to condemn him. It was a talent of great worth which the Lord of all had committed to his charge; but, instead of laying it out for God's glory, he had oftentimes THE TRUE WISDOM. 77 prostituted it to tlie service of folly and sin, and more frequently- still liad employed it to deify himself If the fool for abusing his one talent must be brought in guilty, how much more the wise man who had abused his ten ! " For unto whom much is given, of him shall be much required" (Luke xii. 48). Blessed be God, there is a better wisdom than earthly science can ever teach. " But continue thou," said the apostle Paul to Timothy, " in the things which thou hast learned, and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them : and that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scrij)- tures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. iii. 14, 15). Let us rejoice that this highest wisdom is not the rare gift or attain- ment of the few, but may be the possession of all, even of those who, as regards the wisdom of this world, are no better than fools. So plainly is it taught in the Word of God, that even the way firing man, though a fool, shall not err therein. The one qualification needful for any man who would acquire it is, tliat he become as a little child. It is the way of a righteous God to hide these things from the wise and prudent, and to reveal them unto babes. Therefore is it written, " I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the under- standing of the prudent. Where is the wise ? where is the scribe? where is thedisputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world ? For after that, in the wis- dom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom : but we i)reach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness; but lyito them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. i. 19-24.) Solomon had thus been making a deliberate survey of human life, and more especially had been reviewing the course which in the days of his folly he had himself pursued. That course 78 A RETROSPECT. had been of a very diversified description. It had carried him now in one direction, now in another. At one time he had been the assiduous and successful cultivator of learning and science ; at another, the thoughtful statesman and political econo- mist, providing for the security, developing the resources, and augmenting the wealth of his kingdom ; at a third, the man of taste, beautifying his capital and his country seats with magni- ficent works of art ; at a fo^^rth, the man of pleasure, carousing with his boon companions, and running the wild race of mad- ness and folly with the gayest, the most reckless, the most pro- fligate of them all. Having at length turned himself, in some hour of calm reflection, to look back on this strange career, there was, as we have seen, one conviction which deeply impressed itself on his mind — that though neither the wisdom which had characterized some departments of that career, nor the folly Avhich had been so painfully manifest in others, had won for him the happiness he sought — yet that wisdom was a far nobler thing than folly — that the one excelleth the other as far as light ex- celleth darkness. The wisdom, it is true, of which alone Solomon had it then in view to speak, was mere earthly wisdom — the wisdom of human science and worldly prudence. But to be guided even by this wisdom was to be in a greatly better posi- tion, for many of the pm-poses of life, than that which belongs to the senseless and improvident fool, whose ignorance or inca- pacity, or whose debasing habits and grovelling pursuits, make him worse than useless to others, and little better than a burden to himself This, however, was not the only conclusion to which the contemplation of his past career had conducted him. Solo- mon saw well enough the superiority which his wisdom gave him in managing his affairs, and in prosecuting his various worldly schemes. But he also saw that there were other things, and these of far deeper moment, in regard to which his wisdom was of no avail. It could not control the course of events. There was a higher Power at work on this eartlily scene, which ever and anon, by some unexpected and resistless movement, THE SORROW OF THE WORLD. 79 was overturning the best-laid plans, and trampling the devices of human wisdom in the dust, and in whose giant grasp tlie wise man was oftentimes made to feel himself to be as impotent as the fool. He saw, above all, that the end of the wise man, like that of the fool, is to sicken and die ; and that when he is gone, " there is no remembrance of the wise man more than of the fool for ever ! " The humbling and depressing thought, as to a mind like his it must have been, to which Solomon had thus given utterance in the 16th verse, settled down like a dark cloud upon his soul. Is this all that the wisdom I have been at so much pains to acquire, and in which I have been so accustomed to glory, can do? To enable me to outshine my contemporaries for a few fleeting years ! To make me more skilful and successful than others in building me houses and planting me vineyards, and in surrounding my- self with the delights of the sons of men ! And then, perhaj)s, without a moment's notice, to let me sink into the tomb, and rot in the dust, side by side with the gaping fool who may now be admiring my greatness and envying my renown ! As this re- pulsive jDrospect rose up before his mind's eye, its influence fell, like a withering blight, upon his heart. Not only did it de- prive him of all relish for those pursuits and pleasures to which he had previously been so devoted, but it made him regard them with feelings of positive disgust. A sullen spirit of misanthropy took hold of him. Existence itself lay on him like a burden, and galled him like an oppressive and intolerable yoke. A little before, he had been disposed petulantly to demand, " And why was I then more wise*?" Now he is ready, half impiously, to ask, "And why was I born?" In a word, he "hated life." In- stead of a blessing, it seemed to him, in this distempered mood, to be a positive curse. It was like a landscape from which every ray of sunshine, and every remnant of verdure and beauty, had utterly disappeared — which had been suddenly transformed, by some malignant power, into a dull, and cheerless, and desolate waste. As he looked around him on his royal state — on " the 80 A RETEOSPECT. meat of liis table, and the sitting of liis servants, and tlie attend- ance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cup-bearers" (1 Kings X. 4) — on all that grandeur, in a word, which had so dazzled the Queen of the South that when she beheld it " there was no more spirit in her" — it had lost all its power to please him. He felt that in the midst of it he was but walking in a vain show. It seemed to him now to be nothing better than a mockery ; for behind it all, and through it all, he could see too plainly the dark and lonesome grave to which he must ere long be consigned, where his regal robe must be exchanged for a shroud, and his large and glorious kingdom must shrink into six feet of common earth. Nor was this all. It was, indeed, a mortifying thought that Solomon the wise must die as the fool ; but it was more morti- fying still to reflect that, in the hands of his successor, the works on which he had lavished such wealth and skill might all, in a few years, come to nought, and be as if they had never been. It is to this additional and aggravating consideration he turns at the 18th verse, where he goes onto say : — " 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 work which others wrought under the sun, even though wrought expressly in his own behalf, had ceased to afibrd him pleasure, nay, had become grievous unto him, and was felt to be all vanity and vexation of spirit, because he had no more ability than the veriest fool to retain possession of its fruits, but, like the fool, must die and leave them all behind. But that the fruits of his own labour, too, must pass away entirely out of his hands and beyond his control, and be, by and bye, at the absolute.disposal of some one who, per- chance, could neither appreciate nor preserve them, was like gall and wormwood to a mind which, like that of Solomon, had been all but deifying its own powers. With the resources of a kingdom at his command, he had been rearing what he meant to be the monuments of his fame. He had been fitting out fleets, and framing commercial treaties, and erecting store cities and fenced UNCERTAINTIES OF THE FUTURE. 81 cities, in order to increase tlie wealth, and promote the material prosperity, and to enhance the dignity and influence of his country and crown. He had been filling Jerusalem with the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces, with the rarest products of nature and the costliest works of art, in order to convey to latest posterity some adequate conception of the splen- dour which had distinguished his illustrious reign. But the stern fact which had now risen up before him, — like the mysterious handwriting that suddenly flashed upon Belshazzar from his palace wall, in characters of fire, — broke the proud monarch's dream, and prostrated his boastful anticipations in the dust, -'^.notlier must ere long wield his sceptre and occupy his throne, and '•' who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool ?" We can hardly doubt that Solomon had seen, in the tastes and habits of the heir-apparent to the crown, something that gave painful force and significancy to these pregnant words. Rehoboam was forty and one years old when his father died; and if, as many things seem conclusively to prove, this book of Ecclesiastes was written towards the close of Solomon's life, his successor had in all probability reached the stage of man- hood at the period to which this passage refers. His general disposition and turn of mind must by this time, therefore, have been sufficiently manifest to so close an observer as Solomon; and can hardly fail to have betrayed those features of levity and recklessness from which, after his father's decease, there flowed such disastrous consequences to himself and to his kingdom. We may well, indeed, suppose that a father's eye took as indulgent a view of Rehoboam's character as the nature of the case allowed ; but, bearing in mind what manner of man Rehoboam was, we can the better understand the gloomy feeling with which, in the prospect of leaving all his labour to the man that should be after him, he said, " Yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein T have laboured, and wherein I have showed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity." There was bitterness in the thought; but how much deeper and more poignant would the 82 A RETEOSPECT. bitterness have been, had some prophetic hand at that moment unveiled the future and revealed to him the disgrace and dis- memberment in which Kehoboam's accession was destined to involve his noble and prosperous realm ! Scarcely had Solomon been gathered to his fathers when the folly of his son fanne<:l the little fire of a local and temporary discontent into the flames of a wide-spread rebellion, which terminated in the permanent alienation of ten out of the twelve tribes from the family of David, and in the establishment of that fatal breach in the house of Israel, that so ruinously weakened its power, and im- paired its influence for good in the Gentile world. Further- more, and to make the degradation of the kingdom more mani- fest and more complete, within five years after Kehoboam began to reign, " Shishak, king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house ; he took all : he carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made" (2 Chron. xii. 9). In a word, the darkest thoughts that were now filling the' moody mind of the king, were realized to the full — all that he had been at so much pains to build up was utterly broken down — all that he had laboured to accumulate was scat- tered to the winds ! ' What a lesson is written here for those who are spending their time and strength in laying up treasure for themselves, but are not rich towards God ! Let them ponder the words of Solomon and the history of his house. The instruction which these convey is pre-eminently needful at the present hour, when men are actually treading one another down, in their eager and engrossing pursuit of the things of this world. Did the mul- titudes who, in this bustling and ambitious, but somewhat sordid age, are toiling after wealth — and who, in their eagerness to reach it, are many of them ready to sacrifice, not only their health and ease, but their conscience too — reflect a little on the considerations which this striking passage suggests, they would surely be led to pause. "What happened to Solomon is no rare A FOOL MAY BE THE WISE MAN'S HEIR. 83 and unwonted occurrence. The same tiling, for substance, is taking place eveiy day. It is as true now as it was in the times of the Psalmist, that men heap up riches and know not who shall gather them. Could those who at this present moment are thus employed, get a glimpse of the future — could they realize the state of things in which all their painful anxieties and toils may be destined to issue, perhaps within half a genera- tion after they are laid in the dust, — could they see the splendid fortune which their laborious industry had accumulated dissi- pated by extravagance, or broken up and lost by mismanagement and folly — could they behold the noble mansion they had reared passing into the hands of strangers, or falling into decay — could they witness the hammer of the auctioneer rudely dispersing in a day those choice treasures of literature and art, iipon the col- lection of which taste and wealth had been occupied for years — could they get a sight of all this, they would cease, perhaps, to wonder that the bare thought of such things should have wrung from Solomon these bitter words : — " Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun." It has been already hinted, as at least highly probable, that in giving way to these dark and desponding imaginations, he was not influenced exclusively by the mere abstract possibilities of the case. These, no doubt, are always such as may involve the very worst of what is here contemplated. Although, at the moment, all may promise well, the vicissitudes of an unknown future may speedily change the whole aspect and condition of things. The wise son who made the father glad, and in the jDro- spect of whose succession his heart rejoiced, may go before him to the grave, and the real heir may turn out to be one whom. he can neither trust nor love. These, and such like uncertainties, must always hang over even the brightest prospects that relate to this present world. But the discomfort which that uncer- tainty is of itself amply sufficient to create in the worldly mind, was, we cannot doubt, greatly aggravated in the case of Solomon, 84 A EETROSPECT. by what lie knew of tlie actual character, and dreaded might be the subsequent career, of his son Kehoboam. The two kinds of men, so pointedly contrasted in the 21st verse, were, most likely, no mere sketch of fancy, but a picture, the living ori- ginals of which were at that moment vividly present to Solomon's mind. " For," said he, "there is a man whose labour is in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity : yet to a man who hath not laboured therein" — who hath not exercised himself in the put- ting forth of any such qualities — "shall he leave it for his portion." Though Solomon had given way to man}^ personal follies, it was still true that in ruling his kingdom, and in administering public affairs, his policy and his proceedings had been largely regulated by wisdom, and knowledge, and equity. Of this fact we have abundant j^roof in the sacred history of his memorable reign. Nor does the history of his successor less clearly show that these virtues were no part of the inheritance of Kehoboam. It is easy to conceive how painfully the thought of all this must have weighed upon Solomon's heart. If, indeed, that heart had been right with God — if it had been to God he was looking, to uphold himself and his kingdom — if it had been in God's power he was seeking his chief joy, he would never have known the anguish by which he was now oi:>pressed. It was because he had been living without God, and seeking his happiness away from God, that the iron of these bitter reflections now entered so deeply into his soul. In the haughty confidence of the arm of flesh he had been saying, as he surveyed his prosperous realm, and his splendid capital, and all the great works by which his kingdom was at once fortified and adorned, " By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am prudent." But that very mind on whose immense resources he so proudly relied, itself broke his peace. Its penetrating glance looked through the glit- tering surface of things, and showed him how hollow and insecure was the foundation on which his grandeur stood, j^ nticipating the altered position which things must assume when the infirmity of age should have enfeebled his capacities, or the strong arm of A PAINFUL THOUGHT. 85 death should have wrenched the sceptre from his grasp, and when all that wealth, and fame, and power, with which he had la1)Oured to identify himself, must pass into weak and incompetent hands — must be left " to the man that should come after him" — he was too far-sighted not to know what the end must be. He had been sowing to the flesh, and the terrible conviction had already seized him, that of the flesh he was destined to reap corruption. Well, 'therefore, and truly might he say that, " This also is vanity and a great evil." To explain and vindicate this statement, he proceeds ^in the succeeding verses, the 2 2d and 23d, to point out the practical bearing of the humbling facts previously specified, and to which this statement referred. If it was indeed so, that the wisest and most sagacious must die as certainly as the fool — that they must leave all their worldly acquisitions behind them — leave them, it may be, to some silly dupe who will soon be cheated out of them, or to some reckless speculator who will throw them away, or to some wasteful spendthrift who will consume them in riot- ous living — if this were so, then might Solomon with reason inquire, " What hath man of all his labour, and of the vexa- tion of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun? For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief j yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night." If this is to be the end of it all, that the produce of his toils must pass away from him, to perish, it may be, in the hands of a successor, of whom he cannot possibly tell whether he is to be a wise man or a fool — what has he gained 1 What-a^eward has he received to compensate him for those laborious days and restless nights that were occupied in heaping up what may be so speedily and so utterly thrown away'? Does not the very putting of such questions — qiiestions to which no answer but one can be given — amply justify Solo- mon in affirming, of a life so spent, and leading to such an issue, that " it is vanity and a gi-eat evil ?" It cannot be denied that the account Solomon gives of the pains and cost at which men usually gain worldly wealth and 86 A RETEOSPECT. greatness is strictly true. Tliey pay a higli price for it. Its attainment costs them many a lousy hour and many an anxious thought. Our merchants and millionaires, even the most suc- cessful of them, could tell whether it be any exaggeration to say that their days have oftentimes been 'sorrows, and their travail grief. And if they have never sought or secured any other or better portion than that which this world gives, they could also tell of how little worth it is, and how poorly it repays the heavy sacrifice of time, and toil, and care at which it has been obtained. Were they to sjDeak plainly out — to utter the secret feeling of their heart — there is little doubt it would be in some such confession as that of Solomon, that " This is also vanity." It must never be forgotten, in dealing with this passage, that Solomon is here recording his experience as a man of the world. He is not speaking of the feelings with which a man of God would contemplate the same things. Such a man can look for- ward to death, and to all the changes, possible or probable, which it may be destined to make upon his fortune, or his family, or his worldly fame, without any undue disquietude — without either the disgust or the despair which the language of Solomon breathes. Whatever calamity may betide his name and lineage, the believer can still say with David, " Although my house be not so with God ; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure : for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow " (2 Sam. xxiii. 5). Having set his affections, not on the things which are beneath, but on those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God, earthly vicissitudes cannot shake the foundations of his peace. He knows the blessedness of the man who trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. But though up to the 24tli verse it is as the man of the world that Solomon speaks, the thoughtfid and observant reader can hardly fail to perceive that at this point the spiritual man comes iu to teach us what he had subsequently learned in another and RIGHT USE OF WORLDLY THINGS. 87 better scliool. As respects worldly possessions, lie had been striving to make tliem the foundations of his happiness and the pillars of his fame ; but both the palpable experiences of the past and the dark shadows already falling from the coming events of the future, had painfully dissolved the dream. Were these earthly things to be therefore despised 1 Was it right and wise to regard them with that sullen and scornful feeling which made Solomon, in that gloomy period of his career, " go about, and cause his heart to despair of all the labour which he had taken under the sunT' No. He came at length to see that the blame of that bitter disappointment to which his earthly acquisitions had given rise, was not their fault but his own j it was the fault of his seeking and expecting from them a measure and kind of happiness they were never meant to yield. It was the fault, in a word, of making them his chief good, and, in them, loving and serving the creature more than the Creator. When, taught and guided by the Sj^irit of God, he came afterwards to view them in a truer and juster light, and to put them, in consequence, in their own proper and subordinate j)lace, this is the conclusion at which he arrived — that " 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." He learned to see, in short, that to be rightly and profitably used, these worldly things must be treated, not as an end, but simply as a means. "Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving : for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer" (1 Tim. iv. 4, 5). Let him to whom these worldly things are given, whether by inheritance or as the fruit of his own industry, take from them, with a cheerful and grateful heart, such comfort as it belongs to them to impart. Let his soul in this way enjoy good in his labour ; and let him not be unduly careful for the morrow. Enough for the day is the evil thereof ; let the morrow take thought for the things of itself. Let him neither play the miser nor the monk j but let him use this world as not abusing it, so that it 88 A RETROSPECT. may supply liis wants and minister to his convenience, and sus- tain laim in his work, and put it in his power to give to him that needeth ; and all the while may continually remind him of his dependence on the great Author of his being, from whom every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down. In so far as this world's possessions are concerned, there is nothing better for a man than that he should employ them thus. So dealing with them, he will be their master and not their slave. He will neither be unreasonably elated by abundance, nor weakly depressed by the scantiness of a more stinted store. Having food and raiment, he will be therewith content. Like the apostle, he will be instructed both " to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need" (Phil. iv. 12). Solomon at length discovered that this was the right course — the golden mean between an excessive carefulness, that virtually distrusts God, and a wasteful prodigality or luxurious self- indulgence, by which God's gifts are abused. But he also dis- covered that to follow this course was not the dictate of the natural mind. " This also I saw," he says, " that it was from the hand of God." He alone coidd dispose and enable carnal and selfish man so to regulate his desires, and to control his appetites, and to consider the wants and the welfare of others, and, above all, so to commit his way unto the Lord, as to realize that state of things which Solomon meant to describe. In a word, it is from the hand of God that a man learns to be without careful- ness, and to eat his meat with gladness and singleness of heart ; and, by the regulated use and right imiDrovement of that portion of worldly substance he has received, "to enjoy good in his labour." Had it been otherwise — had it been an attainment of man's own, thus to extract from worldly things the good which they are really capable of communicating — surely Solomon must have succeeded in it. "For who," he continues, " can eat, or who else can hasten hereunto, more than I ? " It is the very thing I was set upon. I was bent on finding happiness in the things of sense, in the pleasures of the table, and in the luxury THE GODLY ALONE CAN RIGHTLY USE THIS WORLD. 80 and splendour with which wealth had surrounded me. But I utterly failed, notwithstanding. I was soon satiated with my gorgeous feasts. They palled upon my taste. I thought of death, and sickened at the very sight of banquets that were only feeding me for the worms, and of a magnificence that must so speedily be exchanged for the ghastliness of the tomb ! But though Solomon, in the days of his folly, failed, as all men of carnal and earthly minds fail, to get out of worldly things the actual good and enjoyment which the beneficent Au- thor of our frame meant them to convey, there is a way of get- ting it — as has been already explained — but a way that must bo learned " at the hand of God," " For God givetli 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 heai") up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit." No man, therefore, may hope to learn this secret — the secret of making his soul eujoy good in his labour — but the man who is himself good in the sight of God. Many men, let it be heedfully noted, are good in their own eyes, or good in the eyes of the world, who are not good in God's eyes — not good, as He sees them, and according to the standard by which He measures them. The carnal mind, which is the mind of every unregeuerate man, " is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. viii. 7). And therefore, in His sight, no man is or can be good but he who has become through grace a new creature; who has put ofi" the old man, which is corrupt, with the deceitful lusts ; and who has put on the new man, which, after God, is renewed in righteous- ness and true holiness. Such a man is good ; because the love of God, who is the centre and source of all goodness, has been shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost given unto him. To such a man — the child of God, the genuine believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, he whose rejoicing is this, even the testimony of his conscience, that in simj^licity and godly sincerity, not by fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, he has his conversation in 6 90 A RETROSPECT. tlie world — to such a man, God givetli "wisdom, and knowledge, and joy." He givetli to such a man wisdom and knowledge to estimate earthly things at their proper worth, to discern the true place that belongs to them, and to apply them to their fitting and lawful ends. He giveth, moreover, to such a man that cheerful contentment with his lot, that grateful sense of the divine goodness, that delight in promoting the happiness of others, which makes even his earthly things a source of continual joy. He sees God in them all, and by them, as instruments or means, it is his meat and his drink to do God's wHl. It is altogether otherwise with the sinner — with the man, that is, who has no part nor lot in Christ, and who, therefore? whatever the world may think of him, or whatever he may think of himself, is living without God. To such a man, " God giveth travail to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God." He spends his money for that which is not bread, and his labour for that which satisfieth not. The avarice which prompts him to toil so incessantly after worldly gain, will not suffer him to take the good of it. All his life long it proves little else to him than a load of anxiety and care; and when death at length compels him to relax his hold of the coveted treasure, it finds its way into other hands. The poor miser becomes, perhaps, a public benefactor at the last. One way or other, and often in ways the most unlikely and unexpected, the laborious accumulations of the sinner become ultimately the heritage of the man or of the cause that is good before God. The sinner sows but the good man reaps. " The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he de- lighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down : for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand. I have been young, and now am old ; yet have I not seen the righte- ous forsaken nor his seed begging bread For the Lord loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever : but the seed of the wicked shall be cut SINNERS SOW, AND THE GODLY REAP. 91 off. . . . The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord, he is their strength in time of trouble, and the Lord shall help them and deliver them; he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them because they trust in him." .... "Trust therefore in the Lord and do good : so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart" (Ps. xxxvii). 92 THE LOKD REIGNETH. CHAPTER Y. OUE TIMES AEE IN THE HAND OF GOD. "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose mider the heaven: A time to he bom, and a time to die : A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted : A time to kill, and a time to heal : A time to break down, and a time to build up : A time to weep, and a time to laugh : A time to mourn, and a time to dance : A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together: A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing: A time to get, and a time to lose: A time to keep, and a time to cast away: A time to rend, and a time to sew: A time to keep silence, and a time to speak : A time to love, and a time to hate : A time of war, and a time of peace." — Eccles. hi. 1-8. . UP to the 24tli verse of chapter ii., Solomon speaks simply as the man of the world; describing the course which, in that character, he had pursued, and the unsatisfied and wretched state of mind in which it had left him. At that point, as has been al- ready noticed, there is an evident change. A better wisdom than his own begins to be apparent in the train of reflections that fol- lows. The hand of God is now recognized as the all-controlling power in human affairs, and His blessing is seen to be the source of all that is gracious and good in the heart and life of man. In a word, the fact, at every step of our progress, becomes hence- forth increasingly manifest, that Solomon survived the mourn- ful and humbling season of his defection from God, and that this book is the precious and lasting fruit of his happy restoration to the faith and the piety of his earlier days. So long as he THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CHANCE. 93 surveyed it tliroiigli the medium of tlie wisdom of tliis world, liuman life seemed to be a mere chaos of confusion, governed by no plan, and leading to no result, and in which all was vanity and vexation of spirit. At length, however, a light from above breaks in on this dark and disordered scene, and all things in consequence assume to his eye an entirely altered form. That which was meaningless before, is full of meaning now. It is no longer a blind chance, but a fixed, and wise, and righteous law, under which all events are seen to be taking place. From this point, accordingly, we find his observations on men and things assuming a different tone. Their worth is tried by an- other standard, and judged by another rule; and the devout student of this remarkable portion of Holy Scrij)ture is gradu- ally led on to that " conclusion of the whole matter" at which Solomon himself, through grace, had finally arrived — the con- clusion that the wisdom and the happiness of man are summed up in this, that " he should fear God, and keep his command- ments." The passage at present before us signally illustrates the cor- rectness of these remarks. Instead of continuins: to indulore the rash and atheistic notion to which at one time he had been, tempted to give way, — that there is no principle, and no system in the universe — that good and evil, wisdom and folly, share the same indiscriminate fate, — this passage expressly and pointedly announces the great contrary fact, that "to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." All things, that is to say, are of God, and there is a season fixed for the accomplishment of everything which God has decreed — a time unalterably determined for the execution of every j^urpose wliich He has formed. Man's decrees and purposes often fail from the fickleness of his own mind, from his want of foresight, and from his want of power. When the period contemplated for carrying them into effect arrives, he has already, perhaps, laid them altogether aside ; or if they are still entertained, he finds, it may be, the circumstances unfavourable to the carrying out 94 THE LORD REIGNETPI. of his design. It is altogether otherwise with the designs of the Almighty. When His set time for working comes, not all the 2^ower in the universe can stay His hand. When we first look abroad, indeed, upon the busy field of human afiairs, and observe the numerous actors upon the scene, all moving energetically to and fro, planning, arranging, adjusting the course of things, we may be tempted for the moment to imagine that destiny itself is in their hands. But when we have looked a little longer, and have seen all their schemes deranged, and all their contrivances thwarted, and all their devices turned to fool- ishness, and a result emerging the very opposite, it may be, of what they had been labouring to produce, we begin to discover that there is a Power out of sight mightier than they all — One whose purposes are from everlasting to everlasting — whose counsel shall stand, and who will do all His pleasure. This is the pregnant and momentous truth w-hich Solomon here pro- claims. He tells us, with the voice of inspiration, that there is nothing accidental in all the complicated movements and occur- rences, whether of the moral or of the material world. He in substance declares, what a greater than Solomon expressly affirms, that the very hairs of our head are all numbered, and that with- out God not even a sparrow falleth to the ground. Is a man to be born ? — not only the event itself, but the pre- cise moment at which it is to happen, has been irrevocably decreed in the counsels of eternity. When that moment comes, the deadness of Sarah's womb proves no bar to the birth of Isaac! — the exterminating decree of Pharaoh is powerless to arrest the birth of Moses ! — the unbelief of the Jews cannot hinder or delay the birth of Messiah ! And no more, on the other hand, when the appointed season arrives, can the impending slaughter of the innocents avail to prevent the birth of a Herod, or the impending persecution of the saints of God, to prevent that of a Nero or of a Philip of Spain. When God has a pur- pose of mercy towards his church and people, the deliverer is born, though the great red dragon should be standing ready to THERE IS A TIME TO DIE. 95 devour liim. Aud when he has a purpose of judgment to fulfil, not even the pleadings of a David or a Hezckiah can stay the forthcoming of the destined instrument — the Jeroboam or the Nebuchadnezzar — who is to be the rod of the Lord's anger, and the staff of his indignation. On the other hand, is a man to die 1 There is a time for that, too, as unalterably fixed as the setting of the sun. Ahab may dis- guise himself in the battle, but an arrow shot at a venture finds out unerringly the fatal joint in the king's harness, and inflicts the mortal wound. Our own William, the hero of our glorious Revolution, faces death again and again in the bloodiest of battle-fields, and never meets it; but at length, when no danger threatens — when he is surrounded with the quiet and security of home — ^liis horse stumbles, and he is consigned to the tomb ! In a word, the times of all men, high and low, rich and poor, young and old together, are in the hand of God. When he sendeth forth his spirit, we are created; and wlien he taketh our breath away, we die. Not one solitary individual of the human race is either born or dies an instant sgouer^.or laterj than God has ordained; and every separate human existence has its own definite place and use in that wonderful and all-comprehensive economy under which He is incessantly carrying on the great ends for which He summoned the universe into being. Judging ac- cording to our limited and imperfect views, we may be ready to think of one man, that he has been born too soon; and of another, that he has been born too late, for the age in which he lives ; or to think of this individual, that the days assigned him are too few, and of that individual, that the days assigned him are too many. But the very fact that there is " a time to be born, and a time to die" — a time fixed for all, and fixed by the only -wise God — should both silence aiid satisf y ev ery pious and thoughtful minjl. AVhat especially concerns us, in connection with that solemn and significant fact is this, that the all -important interval between our birth and our death, is rapidly drawing to an end, and tliat we can no more add one hour to the appointed sum of 96 THE LORD EEIGNETH. our days^ than we can add one cubit to our stature. At tlie longest, it will be all too brief for the work which God has given us to do ; and to-morrow ib may have come to a close. This is the work of God, that we believe in Him whom God hath sent. It is only in so far as the life we live in the flesh is a life of faith upon the Son of God, that we are prepared to face the hour that awaits us all — our time to die ! Having thus signalized, in the outset, the fundamental truth that " there is a time to be born, and a time to die," Solomon roceeds to testify that there is also a j)re-determined time for every work which, in this present life, man can have to do. " There is a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted." There is not improbably an allusion here to his own achievements in this line of things. Solomon had planted much ; and his eye had no doubt rested often with delight on the blooming gardens, and fruitful vineyards, and waving woods, that had sprung up around his favourite residences, under his graceful and skilful hand. And not a little, perhaps, of the bitterness which had been bound up with the thought of leav- ing all his labour to the man that should come after him, had arisen from the painful apprehension that his fair flowers and goodly trees might have no value in the eyes of his successor, and might ere long be all rooted up or trampled down. But that result he could now contemplate with a calmer mind. These things were not designed to endure. Their own natural decay, or some newer style of horticulture, or the altered taste, or pecuniary necessities of their owner, or the ravages of war — any one, in short, of an endless variety of causes would suffice to bring about, within no distant jDeriod, '• a time to pluck up," a time to undo all which in this department of his labour Solomon had done. Nor is it true in a literal sense only, that tliere is a time " to plant, and a time to pluck up that wliich is planted." It is as true in a figurative or metaphorical sense. There is a time to plant thrones and dynasties, peoples and nations, and even THEKE IS A TIME TO PLUCK UP. 97 Christian missions and cliurches ; and a time to pluck tliem up again by the roots. The thrones of the house of David have long since disappeared. The Pharaohs, the Nebuchadnezzars, and the Caesars have perislied. Empires that once ruled the world are now only names in history. Churches that had apostles for their founders, and martyrs for their leaders, and that in primitive times subdued kingdoms, and wrought righte- ousness, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens, have themselves been subdued by their own errors and sins. " Now will I slug to my well -beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill, and he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant : and he looked for judgment, but be- hold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry Therefore, as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame con- sumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust ; because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel" (Is. v. 1, 2, 7, 24). Such words as these, while they emphatically confirm the saying of Solomon, that there " is a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted" — and while they serve to show how wide the range and scope of that saying is — they also teach us that the time in question is not determined by an arbitrary decree, but is adjusted with unerring wisdom and righteousness to the great designs of the government of God. " At what instant, saith the Lord, I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to jiluck up and to pull down, and to destroy it ; if that nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it ; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said 98 THE LORD PvEIGNETH. I would benefit them" (Jer, xviii. 7-10). Of this, especially, we may be well assured, that every plant which our heavenly Father hath not planted — every opinion, every institution, every jDower which is at variance with His mind and will — shall be rooted up. Fashion and custom may be all on its side — cen- turies may have been occupied in extending its influence — nations may be banded together to defend and uphold ifc — but the time will come when it must inevitably fall. " Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire" (Matt. iii. 10). There is " a time to kill, and a time to heal." There is a time when the king who would be "the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil" (Rom. X. 4), must smite with the sword of justice, and take life away; and there is a time also, when it will be his duty and his privilege to interpose as a protector and benefactor, and to bring help to those who were ready to perish. There was a time for Moses to imprecate the Lord's anger upon the rebellious company of Korah : it was " a time to kill." And there was also a time for him to run into the midst of the con- gregation, and to stand with Aaron between the dead and the living, and to stay the plague : it was " a time to heal." In a word, whoever or whatever may be the instrument of death on the one hand, or of deliverance on the other, there is an ap- pointed season for the agency to work. The destroying angel — whether he appear in the form of famine, or pestilence, or war — comes only when he has received his terrible commission. These appalling visitations, however unexpected may be their rise, or inscrutable their origin, are all obedient to the will of the Supreme Ruler. They come and go at his command ; and their times are as fixed as those of the ebbing and flowing of the tides, or of the rising and setting of the sun. And the same thing is true also of those beneficent influences, — of those plenteous harvests, and salubrious seasons, and peaceful and l^rosperous times, — when the desolations of fiimine, and pestilence, THERE IS A TIME TO BREAK DOWN. 90 and war, are happily repaired, and when a suffering people are again revived and restored. There is " a time to break down and a time to build up." Solomon himself had been one of the greatest builders of the age. He built the house of the Lord, and his own house, and Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer, and Beth-horon the nether, and Baalath, and Tadmor in the wilderness, and cities of store, and cities for his chariots, and cities for his horsemen, in all the land of his dominion (1 Kings ix. 15, &c). But these architectural monuments of his taste and magnificence, as well as of his kingly policy, would not be ever- lasting. Humbling to human pride as the prospect might be, the fact was certain that even the grandest and strongest of them all was destined to become a shapeless ruin. Long centuries ago Zion was ploughed as a field, Jerusalem became heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest; nor have the works of other builders fared better than those of Solomon. Time, and tempest, and war, have sufiaced to overthrow the noblest fabrics of antiquity. The stately palaces of Assyria have crumbled into dust — the ponderous temples of Egypt have fallen beneath their own weight, and lie half buried in the desert sand — the splendid structures of Greece and Rome present nothing but the shattered fragments of what once they were. A " time to break down" has overtaken them all; and that time shall in- evitably overtake every work of man. It was good for Solomon to know this; and it is good for us to know it; that so we may realize the fact that we have, in this world, no continuing city, nor any sure place of abode. Even the earthly house of this tabernacle — the material habitation of the immortal spirit itself — must be dissolved. We may build it up with all kinds of nourishment — we may shade it from the summer's heat, and shelter it from the winter's cold — we may defend it from the hand of violence, and guard it against the insidious assaults of disease or decay; but the time will come when it shall be taken down — when the melancholy words, " dust to dust, and 100 THE LOED EEIGNETH. aslies to aslies," must be pronounced at the grave's moutli, over the goodliest human form that now lives and breathes. How vain, then, to seek, as our chief good, "what we shall eat, or what we shall drink, or wherewithal we shall be clothed ! " After all these things do the nations of the earth seek; but let it be our higher wisdom to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Let it be our supreme desire to have, through faith in Him who is the resurrection and the life, " a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (1 Cor. V. 1). There is " a time to weep, and a time to laugh : a time to mourn, and a time to dance." In our present probationary state of being, both sorrows and joys have an important use. We are so constituted as to be equally susceptible of the one as of the other; nor can our moral and spiritual nature be rightly and fully developed without that peculiar influence which these emotions exert upon the human soul. God has accordingly, in his wisdom and goodness, so ordered His providence as to call into exercise, now the one and now the other. If life were all sunshine, many of our best and most needed lessons would never be learned. If it were all darkness and gloom, the mind would lose its capacity for action, and the heart would be soured or broken. Recognizing this truth, Solomon now sees that those disapjoointments and griefs, under the bitterness of which he had once gone about to cause his heart to despair of all his labour which he had taken under the sun, were really salutary. He is beginning to experience himself, what in this book he teaches to others, " that sorrow is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the coimtenance the heart is made better." But if we would enter into this experience, we must, like him, ac- knowledge the hand of God in the afflictions that befall us. We must understand this, that "affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth sorrow spring out of the ground" (Job v. 6) — that the " time to weep and mourn" is from the Lord. Too many forget this, and fail in consequence to humble them- THERE IS A TIME TO WEEP. 101 selves under God's might j hand. Their aim rather is to disown the time, or to reduce it within the briefest possible limits. For this purpose, they hurry away from it into the distractions of business, or into the gaieties of amusement — and thus refusing to be exercised by the affliction, it yieldeth none of the peace- able fruits of righteousness, but only hardens the heart in world- liness and sin. To such persons, a time of joy is as unprofitable, in a spiritual sense, as a time of sorrow. It awakens no grateful sense of the divine goodness, and prompts to no generous deeds. It serves only to nurse the pride and self-confidence of the human heart. How different is the result when God's hand is seen, and His purpose diligently sought out, in these providential dealings! It is then that in the " time of weeping and mourning" the child of God learns, like the prophet Isaiah, to say, " O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit' (xxxviii. 16). And it is then, also, that in the time of joy — when the Lord has been tm'ning his mourning into dancing — putting off his sackcloth and girding him with gladness — he is ready to take up the language of the Psalmist, and to say — " Bless the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits : who for- giveth all thine iniquities ; who healeth all thy diseases ; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's" (Ps. ciii. 1-5). There is " a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together." This cannot be the same thing as the breaking down and building up spoken of in a preceding verse. It can hardly be doubted that the reference here is rather to the well- known custom of antiquity, and of which mention is often made in Old Testament Scripture, of piling up stones in commemora- tion of important public events. When Jacob and Laban made a covenant one Avith another, " Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar. And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones ; and they took stones, and made an heap : and they did eat there 102 THE LORD REIGNETH. upon tlie heap. . . . And Laban said to Jacob, This heap is witness, and this pillar is witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm. The God of Abraham, and the God of IsTahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt us" (Gen. xxxi. 45, etc.) As another example of the same thing, we read of Joshua, in obedience to a divine command, setting up twelve stones to commemorate the passage of the Jordan — to be a sign among their posterity, that when their children should ask in after-times, "What meaneth these stones'?" the answer should be given, " That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord ; when it passed over Jordan, the waters were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever" (Jos. iv. 6, 7). In like manner, when Joshua vanquished the hostile king of Ai, and hanged him upon a tree, he gave commandment that the dead body should be thrown down at the entering of the gate of the city, and that a great heap of stones, in memory of the fact, should be raised thereon (Jos. viii. 29). The same thing was done at a later period at the death of the rebellious Absalom; for we are told that Joab and his men took his body and cast it into a great pit in the wood, and laid a very great heap of stones upon him (2 Sam. xviii. 17, 18). The cairn of our own country, which still marks, upon the lonely moor or in the solitary mountain glen, the spot where some martyr for Christ's crown and cove- nant fell, may be also noticed, to show how wide-spread and how lasting the custom now vmder consideration has proved. But, distant as it may be, there is a time for casting away these stones, as well as for gathering them together — a time, in other words, when the firmest of earthly covenants is dissolved, and when the memory of the most notable events comes to be for- gotten. There is a time for erecting such memorials and form- ing such treaties. They have their temporary place and use in the economy of providence ; and when their end is served, they cease. Though saddening, it is salutary to remember that THERE IS A TIME TO EMBRACE. 103 all mere earthly bonds arc destined to be broken, and all earthly memorials to perish. The alliances of nations, equally with the ties of social and domestic life, will soon fall asunder. The stateliest monuments that were ever reared to departed worth or greatness will disappear. But there is one bond that shall never be broken — the bond that unites the believing soul to Christ; and one memorial that shall never perish — the memo- rial treasured up in heaven, of a life that has been devoted to God our Saviour ! There is " a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing." The social and domestic affections which are so deeply implanted in our nature crave for objects on which to expend themselves. The companion clings to his friend — the husband to the chosen partner of his lot — the parent to his child. But life has too many duties and too many difficul- ties to be consumed in the caresses of friendship, or in the soft dalliance of love. The time comes when David must tear him- self from the arms of Jonathan, and confront the stern destiny that awaited him ; when Jacob must leave his beloved Bachel, and go forth with the flocks of Laban to endure the drought by day and the frost by night ; when David must cease to indulge his paternal fondness for his beautiful but unnatural son, and finds it needful to refuse even to admit him into his presence. The indulgence of even the purest human affections must not be allowed to interfere with the practical business of life. Solomon himself had too long forgotten this; and had lost in consequence, among his numerous wives and his jovial friends, in idle and enervating pleasures, many a precious hour that ought to have been devoted to the care of his kinijdom, and to the service of his God. There is '• a time to get, and a time to lose : a time to keep, and a time to cast away." There is a time to get — a time when fortune smiles upon our outward estate; when propitious seasons fill to overflowing the barns of the husbandman ; when prosper- ous trade augments the stores of the merchant; when every 104? THE LORD REIGNETH. venture of the capitalist brings in an ample return. But there is also a time to lose — a time when the fig-tree fails to blossom, and there is no fruit in the vine; when the labour of the olive fails, and the fields yield no meat ; when the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls. Shall we murmur at this? Shall we complain that the tide has its ebb as well as its flow 1 " Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? " (Job ii. 10). Oar losses, if rightly under- stood and used, will be as profitable to us as our gains. They will serve to remind us of our dependence on Him who giveth their meat in due season to all His creatures ; and they will teach us not to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God. And as there is thus a time to get, and a time to lose — so there is also a time " to keep, and a time to cast away." The selfish and the worldly-minded recognize only one of these seasons, and obstinately shut their eyes to the other. And because they do so — because with them it is always a time to keep — because they see their brother have need, and shut up their bowels of com- passion from him — because they turn a deaf ear to some high call of conscience, some imperative command of Christian principle, bidding them to go and sell all that they have, and to give to the poor — or to forsake lands and houses for Christ's sake, and to follow Him ; because they do this, they are inevitably preparing for themselves that righteous and terrible retribution spoken of in these words by the apostle James — " Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered ; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire " (v. 1-3).^ There is " a time to rend, and a time to sew." If these words be literally understood, they remind us that the garments we wear, like the bodies they clothe, are liable to decay ; — that there is not only a time to piece them together, and fit them for use — but a time to tear them up and fling them away. If, ', A TBIE TO EEND, TO BE SILENT, TO LOVE. 105 on tlie, otlier hand, as is not improbable, the words are to be taken ii^ a figurative sense, they may be meant to refer to those seasonj^ of sudden calamity and distress, when, in ancient times, men rent their clothes; or to those breaches in families, and kino-d()nis, and churches, when lasting and fatal divisions are made jJ-mong those who were formerly united. There is a time for suc'h disastrous occurrences, and there is a time for the op- posite-— a time when old breaches are repaired, and old divisions healed. And as it becomes us to fast and mourn under the one, it equfilly becomes us to rejoice and give thanks under the other. The'i'e is " a time to keep silence, and a time to speak." It is a t'in\e to be silent when the hand of the Lord has been laid heavily upon us, and when He is commanding us to be still, and to know that he is God. It is a time to be silent when passion is ovei'bearing our judgment, and when the tongue is in danger of being iset on fire of hell. It is a time to be silent when days speak, and the multitude of years is teaching wisdom. It is a time to be silent when our words would be thrown away. But there is a time to speak ; a time of deliverance and blessing, when out of the fulness of the heart the mouth must needs publish the goodness and grace of God; a time of witness-bear- ing, whe.i the truth must be declared, whether men will hear, or whether they will forbear; a time of doing good, when a word spoken in season may be as the balm of Gilead to some sin-sick sioul. There is " a time to love, and a time to hate." There is a sense, indeed, in which the time to love can never have an end. It is always a time for loving God and His Christ — for loving the brotherhood — for loving our neighbour as we love ourselves. God appoints us no time for hating anything but sin. It is probable, indeed, that both here and in other parts of this pas- sage, Solomon is speaking, not of what men ought to do, but of what they actually do. Times occur that are fitted to awaken in our (3arnal nature the sentiment of hatred, and to change even the fondest love into the bitterest enmity. When confi- 7 106 THE LORD KEIGNETH. dence is betrayed, and when benefits are rewarded with^ insult and injury, the revulsion of feeling thereby produced i in an ardent and sensitive mind too easily carries it to the oj extreme, and turns to gall and wormwood all its former love. But the fact that there is a time calculated to produc posite 3 this change, does by no means imply that we are at liberty t(l> yield to its influence. The part of the Christian is to disti)(iguish between the offence and the offender, and while he hatj3S the one, to pity and to pray for the other. " Ye have heardi" said the Lord Jesus, " that it hath been said. Thou shalt loye thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Lovtp your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them thailt hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you ; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matt. V. 43-45). Finally, says Solomon, in completing this long catalogue of earthly vicissitudes, there is "a time of war, and a time of peace." Alas ! that in the history of this fallen world, the time of peace should be but the exception, and the time of war the rule. In the view of the horror and misery which it works, we may cry, like the prophet of old — " thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet 1 Put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still." But the answer is again and again returned — " How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Ashkelon, and against the sea-shore? there hath he ap- pointed it" (Jer. xlvii. 6, 7). The wickedness of men — ava- rice, ambition, intolerance, cruelty, and fraud — will not suffer the sword to be quiet. Nor will this sore controversy of the Lord cease, till the kingdoms of this world shall have become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ. Then there will be nothing to hurt nor to destroy : then shall men beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; neither shall they learn war any more. PERPLEXITIES IN PROVIDENCE. 107 CHAPTER VI. THE BANE AND THE ANTIDOTE. " What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth ? " I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made every thing beautiful in his time : also he hath set tlie world in their heart; so that no man can find out the work that God maketh fi-om the beginning to the end. I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life. And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his laboui', it is the gift of God. I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever : nothiug can be p\it to it, nor any thing taken from it ; and God doeth it, that men should fear before him. That which liath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past. "And, moreover, I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness xcas tliere ; and the place of righteousness, tliat iniquity loas there. I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked : for there is a time there for every pm-pose, and for every work. I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts ; even one thing befalleth them : as tlie one dieth, so dieth the other ; yea, they have all one breath : so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast : for all is vanity. All go unto one place : all are of the dust, and all tiim to dust again. Wlio knoweth the sph-it of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth ? Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works ; for that is liis portion : for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him ?" — Eccles. hi. \)-22. IN the verses immediately preceding the passage which stands at the head of this chapter, Solomon had spoken in very striking terms of the many and great vicissitudes to which human life and all earthly things are liable. Here we see the cradle, and a few steps ftirther on the grave. To-day we find the busy hand of tasteful industry laboriously planting what some other hand is destined ere long to pluck up. Now destructive agencies are let loose, and men fall like grass before the mower's scythe ; anon, the plague is stayed, and it is a time to heal. At one period houses, temples, cities spring up in 108 PERPLEXITIES IN PROVIDENCE. strength, and beauty; at another, decay or violence overtakes them, and they sink into ruin. To-night is all tears, to-morrov/ is all joy. This year, or this generation, alliances are formed, and treaties are ratified, and monuments are reared ; the next, they are dissolved and disappear. At one moment friends, kindi'ed, lovers, are locked in each other's embrace ; at another they are separated by some cold estrangement, or by some stern call of duty, l^ow riches increase, and by and bye, scared by some adverse turn of fortune, they make for themselves wings and fly away. Now it is a fitting season to keep fast hold of our possessions; by and bye the occasion arises when we are imperatively called upon to give them up. To-day division is rending things asunder; to-morrow the spirit of concord is binding them into one. To-day it is a time to be silent ; to- morrow to speak. To-day worth and kindness are calling forth love; to-morrow iniquities and injuries are filling the heart with the bitterest enmity. To-day war is deluging the earth v/ith blood; to-morrow is proclaiming the blissful return of peace. In a world so full of change, amid scenes so shifting and transi- tory, how vain is it to imagine that there can be any solid or satisfying portion for man! It is evidently some such reflection as this that suggested to the mind of Solomon the inquiry witli M^hich the passage before us opens — " What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth 1 " What can he gain to compensate him for his care and toil? However successful he may be in the worldly pursuit to which he has devoted his eflbrts, he cannot protect either his acquisitions or himself from one or other of those numerous casualties to which reference has just been made. At the very moment when his prospects are brightest and his triumph most complete, his time to die may come, and the last enemy, from the warfare with whom there is no discharge, may ring in his ear the startling and terrible words, " Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee : then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?" It was no fanciful picture of human life which, in the fore- LIGHT BREAKS IN. 109 Efoinfr context, Solomon had thus drawn. There was not one of the transitions he had enumerated, of which many examples had not passed under his own eye. He had seen one generation going and another coming at every step of his own career. He had himself often plucked up what others had planted, and broken down what others had built. He had experienced in his own history the alternations of grief and joy — of attach- ment and alienation — of success and failure — of hatred and love. N"or was his case singular. He had biit_shared-in.-the common lot o f man. When he looked around him, whether upon higher or upon humbler life, he beheld everywhere the same ups and downs, the same uncertainties, the same revolutions; and, as the necessary consequence, the same baffled schemes and disappointed^hopes. He had seen, in short, as he himself expresses it, "the travail which '"^ God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith." Solomon had seen that there is a crook in every man's lot ; that there is a burden of some sort or other which every man has to bear. He had^lsQ,„foimd-.>out.JiJ;jaiuJil^ ^^ ,eliancej-that-God has a purpose in it all ; that it is part of His jt^ divine method of convincing men that this is not their rest. Contemplated from man's point of view, the course of events might appear to be without a plan and without an aim. It is altogether otherwise when surveyed from that higher and more commanding eminence on which we are placed by a recognition of the hand and power of God. It is JiQm this vantage ground Splomon.is now casting his thoughtful eye over the whole field of human affairs, and accordingly he is enabled to form a far juster estimate of things. What seemed to him before to be all darkness^iid p^er^lexity, is now full of light and meaning. In a word, the conviction at which he has arrived is this : "^He hath made everything beautiful in his time." Events may be ^Tt^ofJfepiagjiy,itlilt^^^ of man, but they are never out of keeping with the purposes of GocT. If our finite minds were capable of taking in His vast and glorious designs, every pheno- menon of nature, every occurrence of history, every incident of 110 PERPLEXITIES IN PROVIDENCE. human life, would be found to be in its own fitting and proper place. Darkness would become light before us, and crooked things straight. It is, indeed, the duty and the privilege of the child of God to believe and be assured that the statement of Solomon is, and must be, true, even when in some particular instance he cannot see, as yet, all the grounds on which it rests. Though, to his eye, the way of God be in the sea, and His path in the great waters, so that His footsteps are not known, he can still rest with unwavering confidence on the infinite perfections of the Almighty. What he knows not now he shall know here- after, and meanwhile he can take his stand upon this — that the Lord reigneth, and that justice and judgment are the habita- tion of His throne. In point of fact, as Solomon goes on to exjDlain, we cannot often get much beyond this in our present state of being; for while he affirms it to be unquestionably true that " God hath made everything beautiful in his time," he makes this further declaration, " Also, he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beofinnino- to the end." These words, no doubt, are of somewhat difficult interpreta- tion. Most thoughtful readers of the passage have probably found themselves at a loss as to the precise import of the ex- pression, "He hath set the world in their heart;" and yet these words evidently contain the key to the whole sentence to which they belong. They plainly embody the reason or ex- planation, whatever that may be, of the circumstance subse- quently noticed, that "no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." Some commentators have adopted the opinion that the expression in question is not a correct rendering of the original, which they think should rather have been translated thus : — " He hath also put obscurity in their heart" — that is, in the heart or midst of His works. According to this way of getting over the difficulty, Solomon means to say that God has designedly so veiled His own plans, so shrouded them in mystery and darkness, that we cannot A DIFFICULTY EXPLAINED. Ill trace tlie links of the chain so as to be able to fathom, or follow out His great designs: that, in general, we can only, so to speak, feel after them if haply we may find them. Now, in itself considered, and apart from any question of interpretation as to the particular passage before us, this is undeniably true. It was not without reason the prophet Isaiah said — " Yerily, thou art a God that hidest thyself, God of Israel, the Sa- / viour" (xlv. 15). It would scarcely be consistent with the ends of that moral government under which man is placed, or with the right working of that system of training and discipline to which it is needful that he should be subjected in his present state of being, that he should be able to see the end from the beginning — to see, that is, the ultimate issue of all actions and of all events. His faith in God, and his submission to the divine will, could hardly, in such a state of things, be rightly or ade- quately exercised. We are not satisfied, however, that there is any suflScient war- rant for so departing from that sense of the passage which our authorized version has given. It is the same with that which we find in the Septuagint — a translation made by Jews from their own Hebrew tongue — and is substantially at one with the best modern versions made about the same period as our own. The question therefore is — What are we to understand by the assertion that " God hath set the world" — or, as the French version, by a slight variation, and perhaps more accurately, has it — " the age" — the things of this present time — "in their hearts." It obviously cannot be intended that He hath done this in any bad sense, in any sense that would imply that men are com- pelled, by the very nature and necessity of things, to take low, and carnal, and earthly views of the events of this present life. The words cannot possibly have any meaning that is inconsistent with the divine wisdom, and goodness, and rectitude, on the one hand, and with men's responsibility on the other. Is there, then, any sense, compatible with these conditions, in which it can be said that God hath set the world in men's hearts ? We 112 PERPLEXITIES IN PROVIDENCE. apprehend that there is. It is, in truth, a profound thought with which we have here to deal, and one which betrays, like many of the other inspired sayings of Solomon, a deep knowledge of human nature, and of what may be called the -jDhilosophy of human life. God hath set the world in men's hearts in this respect, that He has connected them with it by many close and powerful ties. He has endowed them Avith affections and desires which draw them forcibly towards it; and has so bound it up with their very being, that they cannot in this life detach themselves from it, even if they would. It will of course be understood that in using this lan- guage, we are speaking, not of the evil world, but of the world simply as synonymous with what is seen and temporal — the re- lations, interests, and affairs which make up the existing condi- tion of things. God has set a man's wife, and children, and friends in his heart, by making them the natural and legitimate 1 objects of his love. He has set a man's ordinary business in his hearb, by making him largely dependent on the ability and assiduity with which it is prosecuted. He has set a man's temporal goods in his heart — his money, or houses, or lands, by making them necessary to his convenience and comfort. He has set the very food which man eats in his heart, by not only making it indispensable to his bodily health and life, but by connecting it with the removal of painful sensations, and with the production of others of an entirely opposite kind. He has set the scenery of nature and the creations of art in man's heart, by adapting them to that sense of the beautiful which is a part of his mental constitution. In all these, and many other ways, has God set the world in man's heart — given it, that is to say, a strong place in his affections and sympathies — a place, moreover, which, while it does not necessarily involve man in sin or evil, does unquestionably tend to hinder him from '• find- I ing out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." To illustrate the connection between these two things — be- THE NEAR HIDES THE REMOTE. 113 tween this necessary and intimate relation in Avliicli man is placed to the things of the present world, and his being disal )led from apprehending the intentions of the Almighty — let us select a particular case. Is a mother, for example, deprived by death of a beloved child, — the very place which that child had in her heart blinds her to everything but her own irreparable loss. Engrossed by the desolation of her heart and home, she can think of no- thing else. Even when Christian principle constrains her to humble herself under God's mighty hand, and to say, with some measure of resignation, "His will be done!" — her love to the child still renders her slow to discover the divine purpose for which he was taken away. That love makes her quick, indeed, in discerning the reasons that made it desirable that he should live, but rather shuts her eyes against all the reasons that made it needful that lie should die. And what is true of the mother and her child is equally true as regards all the other relations and connections, and interests of this present world. If a man's prospects of advancement are blighted — if his health or outward estate is injured — if any earthly calamity overtakes him — the loss of comfort, of influence, of position, which is thereby sus- tained, and the consequent grief and humiliation by which he feels himself oppressed, have all a tendency to shut out from his view those far-reaching purposes on which his afflictions may be designed to bear. Present things are too near him, and press ] too strongly upon him, to let him take a calm and comprehensive survey of what is so seemingly remote as the final result towards which his trials tend. It is not in the heart of the city, and in the midst ^f the crowded street — where the near excludes the distant — where the objects at hand, and the exigences of the moment engross the mind — that we can see any great way around us. We must escape from the bustle, and get away up to some lonely eminence — some Pisgah height — before we can comprehend, in the same wide sweeping glance, the present and the future — the wilderness and the promised land. Nor let us complain, that in this present life oui' ordinary 114? PERPLEXITIES IN PROVIDENCE. position is not on the Pisgah height, but low down amid the bustle and business of the world's cares, distractions, and toils. It is true that this very position may so far hinder us from " finding out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end" — may obstruct, that is to say, in many respects, our view of the issue of things. It is due to this position, as much I as to our limited faculties, that now we know only in part. But nevertheless it is the position best suited to our present probationary state of being. God does not mean that in this life we should walk by sight — that the whole future should be laid bare before us — so that we could not take a single step with- out knowing, with infallible certaint}^, whither it must lead, and what must be the consequences of our taking it. He means that we should walk by faith. He means tliat we should commit our way unto the Lord, and trust also in Him, and go forward even when, like Abraham, we know not whither we are going ; or when, like Moses and the Israelites at Migdol, we may see nothing but the Red Sea before us and the hosts of Pharaoh behind. It can hardly fail to be seen how clear and self-consistent a meaning the construction now given to this confessedly difficult sentence imparts to the whole passage to which it belongs. It is as if Solomon had said. Since our condition in this world is sub- j ect to such continual uncertainty, and to such incessant change, we might be tempted to ask whether it be worth any man's while to occupy himself about worldly things at all? And yet, though the fact is certain that these changes and uncertainties do make life a scene of constant labour and care, they are npt without their use. They have every ooe of them a place and purpose in ■—the moral government of God. " He hath made everything beautiful in its season." As, in the economy of material nature, the winter's cold is as needful and salutary as the summer's heat; so in the economy of the moral and spiritual world, sorrows are as indispensable as joys. But though this admir- able wisdom pervades the whole order of providence, and the THE EIGHT USE OF WORLDLY THINGS. 115 whole arrangemeut of events, men fail to discover it. They are too much taken up with their own purposes to get a right view of the purposes of God. Things visible and temporal are so near them, and fill so large a space in their eye, as in great measure to shut out the things which are unseen and eternal. And what is the conclusion to which this consideration should lead us^ Because earthly objects, affairs, and interests have a tend- ency to exert this blinding influence as regards the final pur- poses of God, ought we to separate ourselves altogether from them? Ought we to refuse to have anything more to do with them? Ought we to withdraw in disgust from our worldly calling, and to cast away our worldly substance, and in the spirit of monkish asceticism to retire into some solitude where we might occupy ourselves exclusively with the world to come ? Such a course is- as impossible as it would be injurious. We cannot, in this life, separate ourselves from earthly things. God hath ordained it otherwise. He hath so set the world in our hearts — so bound us up with its objects and interests, its cares and labours — that go where we may, we cannot help carrying them with us; -and with them we must live and die. And what is more — while the separation is thus impossible — no attempt can be made to effect it without injury to the soul. It is in the world, and in the midst of the things of time, that God means to train us for eternity. Our true wisdom, there- fore, consists in this, in neither despising and deserting earthly things, on the one hand, nor in unduly loving them and cleaving to them, on the other; but in estimating them at their proper worth, and in putting them to their proper use. And if any one desires to learn what is their real use and worth, the answer of the royal Preacher is at hand — " For I know," he continues, " that there is no good in them, but for a man to do good and to rejoice in his life. And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God." Substantially the same statement as this, Solomon had made 116 PERPLEXITIES IN PROVIDENCE. before, in the 24th verse of the preceding chapter. Here, how- ever, the truth which it embodies is proclaimed with greater emphasis and precision. There it had the character simply of an inference that may be fairly and reasonably deduced from the facts previously spoken of — facts which impressively illus- trated the folly and vanity of amassing worldly possessions, and of expecting to find in them any satisfying portion. Looking to these facts — facts which prove by what an amount of care and toil it is that worldly possessions are acquired, and how insecure, after all, is the hold we have of them, and how certain it is that we must soon leave them to a successor, whose folly, it may be, is destined to squander in a year what it has cost us a lifetime of anxiety and labour to accumulate — looking to these facts, Solomon at that point merely gave utterance to the very natural conclusion, " that 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." Now, however, when bis argument on this great subject is considerably farther advanced, he assumes a tone of greater authority, and the inference takes the form of an established fact — established by his own personal experience. " I know," he says concerning these earthly things, " that there is no good in them but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life." He had once thought otherwise. He had once loved wealth and worldly greatness for their own sakes, and supposed it possible to find his happiness in them; but time and trial, and the grace of God, had changed his mind. He now saw the sin and the folly of having ever made them his chief good. Their true place, as he now perceived, was altogether subordi- nate. They were but means to certain ends ; but not themselves the end for which any man ought to live. Their use might be summed up in these two things — to supply our temporal wants, and to put it in our power to relieve the necessities and promote the welfare of others. Beyond this, there really was no good in them. This was the limit of their power in the way of bene- fiting man. Thus far they could go and no farther. And, THE GOLDEN MEAN. 117 therefore, the true wisdom, in so far as these earthlj^ things were concerned, was cheerfully and gratefully to enjoy the good of them, so far as we needed it ourselves; and freely and un- grudgingly to employ them in doing good to others. By this authoritative decision, Solomon, in the first place, condemns that excessive carefulness and solicitude about our worldly interests that unfits many men for enjoyiDg the good of to-day, on account of the possible evil that may arrive to-morrow. Such a spirit is dishonouring to God. It betrays a want of confidence in Him. " If," said the Lord Jesus, reproving that distrustful spirit, " God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith ? " (Matt. vi. 30). " Let a man, therefore, eat and drink, and enjoy the good of his labour, it is the gift of God." It was bestowed upon him by the Great Provider, not that it might prove to him a source of anxiety and care, but that it might minister to his temporal comfort, and sustain him in his work. Let him, therefore, use this world as not abusing it — " for every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving : for it is sancti- fied by the word of God and prayer" (1 Tim. iv. 4, 5). But in the next place, by the decision here pronounced, Solomon equally condemns the covetous hoarding of our worldly means, and the selfish spending of all upon ourselves. Solomon, or rather the Spirit of God, by whose inspiration he wrote, has no toleration either for the narrow-souled miser, who has not the heart to sjDend his money at all ; or for the luxurious Dives, who clothes himself in purple and fine linen, and fares sumptuously every day, and leaves all the while the poor neglected Lazarus to pine and perish at his door. The one of these two is like the slothful servant, burying an important talent in the earth ; and one day the rust of this unused talent shall be a witness against him, and shall eat his flesh as it were fire. The other of these two is preparing for himself the terrible taunt, " Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton ; ye have nourished your heart as in a 118 PERPLEXITIES IN PROVIDENCE. day of slaughter " (James v. 5). "When tliat day of slaughter — that day of final retribution comes, the selfish and luxurious liver shall then be reminded that he is only reaping as he sowed. " Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things : but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented" (Luke xvi. 25). In the view of that dread eternity, when God shall render to everj'^ man according to his deeds, how seasonable, in connection with this part of our subject, are the words of Paul to Timothy — "Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life" (1 Tim. vi. 17-19). Solomon had spoken, as we have seen, in the beginning of the chapter, of the many changes to which human life, in this world, is liable ; and from these changes he had derived an argument as to the utter vanity of seeking, or expecting to find, a satis- fying portion among the things of time. And now he founds upon these changes a further argument of the same kind, drawn from the Tact that these changes, all of them, proceed from the hand of God, and that they are connected with the accomplish- ment of His immutable purposes, which no human power can arrest or alter. " I know," he says, at the 14th verse, giving utterance to this solemn thought, "that whatsoever God' doeth, it shall be for ever : nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it." Let men say or do what they please, " His counsel shall stand, and He will do all his pleasure" (Isaiah xlvi. 10). The brethren of Joseph may sell the helpless youth for a slave, but the day will come when they must bow before him, and feel and acknowledge his pre-eminence above them all. Pharaoh, in the haughty consciousness of power, may set himself against the divine command, and arrogantly exclaim, "Who is the god's counsel shall stand. 119 Lord, tliat I should obey his A^oice to let Israel go? I know- not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go" (Exod. v. 2). Never- theless, the hour arrives when the deliverance is achieved, and when the proud boaster, who thought to hinder it, perishes, with all his hostile armament, in the dejDths of the sea. The heathen raged, and the people imagined vain things. The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord, and against His Christ. But it was only to do, in their madness and impiety, whatsoever God's hand and counsel had determined before to be done. " He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh : the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion" (Psalm ii. 4-6). " Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it: and God doeth it that men should fear before Him." He baffles all our efforts to set His purposes aside, and asserts His own right- ful and glorious supremacy, that we may be still and know that He is God. " Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord" (Psalm cvii. 43). The more we mark the operations of His hand in the things that befall us, the greater cause shall we find to con- fess that His tender mercies are over all His other works. " He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men" (Lam. iii, 33). When He chastens, it is not for His pleasure, but for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Let us beware, then, of fighting against God. " He is wise in heart and mighty in strength. Who hath hardened himself against Him and prospered?" (Job ix. 4). It is as vain as it is impious to contend with the Almighty. " Saul, Saul, it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks ! " Instead of resisting His will to our own hurt, let us humbly and heartily accept it as, in all things, holy, and just, and good. In a word, let us learn the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb — " Great and marvellous are thy works. Lord God 120 PERPLEXITIES IX PROVIDENCE. Almiglity ; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, Lord, and glorify thy name, for thou only art holy !" (Rev. xv. 3-4). To illustrate the immutability of which Solomon had thus spoken as characterizing the purposes of God, he adds this further statement — " That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past." He had noticed this fact before, at chaj). i. 9, for the purpose of exjDosing the folly of the men of this world in trying to find happiness in created things. The path they were pursuing had been trodden ten thousand times before, and always with the same unvarying and disappointing result. Here his design, in again referring to it, is rather to confirm the great practical lessons taught in the 12th and 13tli verses of the passage now under consideration — that there is no good in earthly things, "but for a man to rejoice and to do good in his life;" to take, wliile he has them, the comfort they are fitted and designed to yield, and to turn them to account in rendering some needed service to others. That there is no other or higher good in them than this is manifest from the fact, that those vicissitudes which afiect all earthly things, and which make our possession of them so fleeting and insecure, are a fixed and fundamental part of that economy under which we live. They may seem to be the result of chance, but in reality they belong to a pre- arranged and settled order of things. They are as much, there- fore, to be counted on as the recurrence of the seasons, or the revolution of the stars. The laws to which they are subject may elude our observation — the times and the seasons when they are to fall out, God may have kept in his own power; but the fact is certain that happen they will. They have done so from the beginnins: of time, and will to the end. Not one of those vicissitudes which, in the beginning of this chapter, Solomon enumerates, is new or strange. Every age of the world has witnessed their occurrence. Not one solitary generation lias been exempted from them. " That which hath been is now, GOD IS UNCHANGEABLE. 121 and that which is to be hath ah-eady been; and God requireth [or recalleth] that which is past." He seeketh it out, so to speak, that He may again assign to it its place and work, and cause it to accomplish in this age, or in this man's history, what it has accomplished before. When some unlooked-for trial overtakes us, we may be ready to think that our case is exceptional — that it is a new thing under the sun. There were Christians in Paul's time who were disposed to indulge this thought, and who were greatly cast down under it; and there are many who do the same thing, and with the same discouraging consequences, still. To all such, the language of Paul is as appropriate now as in apostolic times, or as in the still remoter times of Solomon: " There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to men ; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able ; but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it" (1 Cor. x. 13). Let God's people, then, take comfort amid all the uncertainties of life, and under all the trials that may be awaiting them. " Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world" (Acts XV. 18). Nothing whatever can occur without His permission; and all things shall work together for good to them that love God, and who are the called according to His purpose. But, on the other hand, let sinners beware. For to them it is an awful thought, that " whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever !" They would fain persuade themselves that His 2/eo&, like their own, will sometimes be exchanged iov nay ; that He will not rigidly execute His threatenings ; and that even the impenitent and unbelieving, who will not have Christ to reign over them, may, nevertheless, somehow escape the wrath to come. But God is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should repent. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one syllable of His word shall pass away till all be fulfilled. " He that believeth in Christ is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" 8 122 PEEPLEXITIES IN PROVIDENCE. (John iii. 18). This is the eternal and immutable counsel of God. " Nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it." If sinners will not have salvation in this way, they can have it in no other; and, therefore, to be without Christ is to be without God, and without hope in the world ! Solomon, let it be remembered, is now looking abroad upon the world with an eye that has been touched with the eye- salve of the Spirit, and the world wears, in consequence, a widely different aspect from that which it had presented to his mind in the days of his folly and sin. The dazzling and deceit- ful glare with which once it shone has disappeared. The many deforming marks, broad and deep, which the fall has left upon it, have come out fully into his view, and instead of regarding it as a satisfying portion, he finds in it little else than vanity and vexation of spirit. Among the numerous dark and disap- pointing features which the picture exhibits, there is one that most painfully affects him, and all the more, perhaps, that he had probably made earnest though ineffectual efforts to remove it. In our exposition of the 13th and immediately following verses of chap, i., we endeavoured to show that in the first stage of his career as a man of the world, Solomon aimed at being a social and political reformer. For this end it would seem to have been, that he gave his heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerninof all thinsfs that were done under heaven. It was evidently a great shock to that haughty self-confidence which his kingly power and his far-famed wisdom had tempted him to indulge, to find, as he did, that he could accomplish so little in the way of rectifying the disorders of human society — that what was crooked could not be made straight, and that what was wanting could not be numbered. The irritation and annoyance thereby produced were suggested, when dealing with that passage, as the not improbable cause of the headlong im- petuosity with which immediately afterwards he threw himself into the vortex of gaiety and sensual pleasure ; as if the failure of his schemes as a philosophical philanthropist, had led him to WICKEDNESS IN THE PLACE OF JUDGMENT. 123 resolve to give himself no further concern about matters of that kind, and to seek simply his own enjoyment, without troubling himself as to what might become of others. But now that divine grace has brought him into a better frame, and that he has come to contemplate all these things from a totally different point of view, he can no longer regard, with the same selfish indifference, the evils which afflict mankind. Among these evils none is more distressing to an upright and benevolent mind than the wrongs and injuries which power often inflicts upon the weak, the helpless, and the poor. When places of influence and authority are occupied by cruel and unjust men, humanity has cause to mourn. It was this state of things that was now grieving the heart of Solomon, and deepening his sense of the vanity of this world. " And, moreover," he says, " I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there." No wonder, indeed, that he saw what has been, alas ! so com- mon in every age, and what is so widely prevalent, in many lands, even at this present hour. This state of things had apparently, as has been already hinted, attracted his notice, and awakened his displeasure, even in the time of his forgetfulness of God. His sense of justice, and all the more generous feelings of his nature, had been outraged by the flagrant dishonesty with which, in too many quarters, law was administered, and by the tyranny with which power was exercised. In seeking and searching out by wisdom all things that were done under heaven, and especially things that were done amiss, and that demanded the aj)plication of some remedy, he had not far to go in order to make many painful discoveries. Not merely in neighbouring nations, but in his own kingdom, his inquiries soon brought him to the know- ledge of facts well fitted to arouse his moral indignation, and to call for instant redress. But to find out the iniquity was one thing; to put an end to it was quite a different thing. He succeeded easily enough in the one, but totally failed in the other; as every social reformer must fail who overlooks the deep depra- 124? PERPLEXITIES IN PROVIDENCE. vity of human nature as the grand source of our social evils, and the gracious influences of the Word and Spirit of God as their only effectual cure. The gay career of mirth and revelry to which he subsequently abandoned himself, was the not un- natural reaction of a mind disgusted by the disappointment of its benevolent purposes, and eager to escape from the contem- plation of evils which it had found itself impotent to remove. Examples of the same thing may be seen in abundance wherever injustice and oppression prevail. Men of more liberal and en- lightened sentiments, who would fain see society delivered from the galling yoke, when they find any such attempts as common benevolence or political philosophy would prompt them to make, completely baffled, and that as much by the apathy, and ignor- ance, and corruption of the jDeople themselves, as by the strong hand of despotism on the part of those in power, they are very often tempted to do what Solomon formerly did — to cease to concern themselves more about it, and to adopt the selfish and heart-hardening conclusion, that the part of wise men is to accommodate themselves to things as they are, and to extract from society, such as it is, as much j)ersonal enjoyment as they can. It is true that Solomon was himself the head of the state, and, in his own kingdom at least, might be supposed to have had the means of removing from the place of judgment the wick- edness which he saw polluting it, and from the place of righteous- ness the iniquity which he saw turning it into a place of wrong. It is, however, to be borne in mind that, not only is the re- forming spirit of a mere man of the world easily wearied and worn out with its task, but that in so wide a sphere as his king- dom, through the conquests of his father, had become, and in so many parts of which there were doubtless multitudes of rude and lawless men, even the authority of a king would frequently find itself altogether unable to cope with the resistance, secret and open, which turbulent and powerful chiefs and selfish and interested magistrates would be ready to oppose to his juster THERE IS A GOD THAT JUDGETH. 125 and humaner views. Had Solomon, at the period of liis history in question, been a reformer of that school to which, in a subse- quent age, such men as Hezekiah and Ezra belonged — had he been prepared, in other words, to address himself to the work of national and social reformation, by proclaiming a fast for his own and his people's sins, and by seeking a revival of the Lord's work throughout the land — he would doubtless have been pri- vileged to see many evils arrested and many abuses done away. But while it is unquestionably the sacred duty of every God- fearing ruler, in the use of all competent means, thus to labour to purify the fountains of public justice, and to promote to the utmost of his power the righteous administration of his govern- ment, it will still remain, in this fallen world, that good men must grieve over the sufferings of oppressed humanity, and must find their chief consolation, where Solomon ultimately found it, in the solemn and yet sustaining thought, that there is a time coming when " God shall judge the righteous and the wicked." If it were not, indeed, for the peculiar considerations ■which this thought suggests, the mind, in surveying the painful spectacle which the words of Solomon so graphically describe, might be tempted to lapse into a state of utter scepticism as regards the very existence of a moral government in the universe at all. When we see, even in this nineteenth century of the Christian era, so many kingdoms where power is but another name for oppression — where law is invoked only to perpetrate the grossest crimes against personal and public liberty — where a remorseless despotism tramples imder foot the dearest rights of humanity — -where every voice that is lifted up on the side of justice and freedom is stifled in a dungeon or silenced on the scaffold ; — when we see all this going on from year to year, and from generation to generation, and hardly one ray of light or hope breaking through the intolerable gloom, it is only by looking up from earth to heaven, and forward from time to eternity, that we escape from despair, and are enabled to do battle with, and to drive away the horrible doubt as to 126 PERPLEXITIES IN PROVIDENCE. whether it be really true that verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth. David tells us that he had once found himself on the very verge of the contrary conclusion. " But as for me," he says, " my feet were almost gone ; my steps had well-nigh slipped. For I was envious of the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. . . Their eyes stand out with fat- ness; they have more than heart could wish. They are cor- rupt, and speak wickedly concerniug oppression: they sjDeak loftily. They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth. . . And they say. How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the Most Highf It almost seemed to David as if this their impious saying were true : as if there were no God, or none who cared about what was doing upon earth : and that as for himself he had in vain cleansed his heart and washed his hands in innocency. But faith rescued him from this abyss. When he went into the sanctuary of God, then understood he their end (Ps. Ixxiii.) As Solomon observes in a succeeding chapter of this book : " Because sen- tence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil " (viii. 11). But though the Lord be slow to anger. He is also of great power, and will not at all acquit the wicked (Nahum i. 3). In our impatience to see the right vindicated and the wrong punished, we are ever ready, with the Psalmist, to exclaim, " It is time for thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void thy law" (Ps. cxix. 126). But in that endless future over which His rule extends, there is "a time for every purpose and for every work." Slowly, it may be, but surely, He renders to every man and to every people according to their deeds. Their own sins are made to find them out, and their iniquities to correct them ; and the violent dealing of the haughty and cruel oppressor comes down at length upon his own head. While God's providence is so or- dered as that in the long run righteousness never fails to exalt a nation. He, on the other hand, turns fat lands to barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein. By such means God, JUSTICE SHALL TRIUTVIPH AT LAST. 127 even in this present life, proclaims tlie existence and asserts the supremacy of liis moral government, and makes it conclusively manifest that He loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity. But this is not all. Beyond this life altogether there is a fur- ther reckoning in store, when God shall bring every work into judgment, and every secret thing, whether it be good or bad. Then shall He finally judge the righteous and the wicked. In the view of that great and notable day of the Lord, the humble and patient believer learns, like Solomon, to contemplate with a more resigned and submissive spirit, the brief reign of the ungodly. " For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him : for he seeth that his day is coming. The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be ot upright conversation. Their swords shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken, . . . but the Lord knoweth the days of the upright : and their inheritance shall be for ever" (Psalm xxxvii). In one of the many Scripture prophecies of Messiah's advent and reign, it is said, "He shall judge thy people with righteous- ness, and thy poor with judgment. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people. He shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. ... In His days shall the righteous flourish ; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endure th" (Psalm Ixxii.) This is the very opposite of the state of things which the words of Solomon describe. It corresponds to that gracious and beautiful pro- mise to the suffering church and people of God, contained in the 60th chapter of the prophecies of Isaiah — "I will also make thy officers peace, and thy exactors righteousness. Violence 128 PERPLEXITIES IN PROVIDENCE. shall no more be heard in thee, wasting nor destruction within thy borders ; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise" (17, 18). Far, indeed, is anything the world has yet seen from the realization of this attractive and glowing picture; though enough has undoubtedly appeared to show, that it is in the progress of the gospel and in the triumph of Christ's cause, that alone there is any hope for the reign of righteousness in this fallen world. It is just in proportion as the religion of Christ has gained a footing in any land, and as its pure principles and beneficent spirit have leavened the minds and moulded the institutions of the people, that we have ceased to see wickedness in the place of judgment, and iniquity in the place of righteousness. If, in our own favoured country, the sight that so afflicted the heart of Solomon be comparatively seldom seen — if the laws are framed with a view to the welfare of the people — if they are administered with equity — if the arm of power be ever ready to defend the weak against the strong, and to secure the rights and liberty of all, it is the gospel of Christ that has gained for us these inestimable bless- ings; and only when the kingdoms of this world shall have become, every one of them, the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, shall there be nothing to hurt nor to destroy. It is by the fulfilment of this one prayer — " Thy kingdom come " — that* the accomplishment of that other prayer shall be real- ized — " Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven." " I said in mine heart," coiitinues Solomon, "concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts." To remove the obscurity that hangs over this verse, it is only necessary to understand what he thus said in his heart as a prayer. The sons of men to whose estate he refers are evidently the worldly, the unspiritual, the carnal, as contradistinguished from those who are the sons or children of God. In meditating on their condition, and observing how completely they were engrossed with earthly things, the earnest desire arose within DEATH EEIGNS OVER MAN AND BEAST. 12!) him that God would show them to themselves, and make them to see that, living as they did, they were lowering themselves to a level with the beasts that perish. They were forgetting altogether their spiritual nature and their immortal destiny. They were sowing to the flesh, of the flesh to reap corruption. " For that which befalleth the sons of men," he goes on to say, " befalleth beasts ; even one thing befalleth them : as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast : for all is vanity." Such a man — a man whose thoughts and desires, whose plans and purposes, whose pursuits and aims, are all bounded by time, and are all of the earth, earthy — has little to distinguish him from the beasts that perish. They, too, have their measure of intelligence and their measure of enjoyment; and if death ter- minates their career, it terminates his too. He may have his dwelling in a palace, and they may have theirs in their forest lair, or in the dens and caves of the earth. But they both come to one home at the last. "All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again." What a humiliating- view is this of the condition of worldly men; and yet how awfully and literally true ! They have no sympathy with the things that are above. They have no tie to link them to the spiritual and eternal world. They have no realizing sense of their relation to the Author of their being. However amiable and estimable as neighbours and friends and members of society many of them may be, it is still this present life — this fleeting, empty, unsatisfying world — to which their views and desires are confined. If, indeed, it were really so, that this life were all, and that death were an eternal sleep, there might be some- thing to say for the course they pursue. Let us eat and drink — let us catch the passing enjoyment of the hour, for to-morrow we die — might be a high enough aspiration for so ephemeral an existence. But the parallel which Solomon is here tracing between the carnal and earthly-minded sons of men, and the beasts that perish, holds only so far as to the grave. Alas! 130 PERPLEXITIES IN PROVIDENCE. good were it for such men if the parallel were maintained beyond the grave too. But at this point the similarity ends, and the contrast begins; and who can adequately comprehend or appreciate the mighty and momentous difference which that contrast involves! "Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" In giving utterance to this solemn inquiry, it is abundantly plain, from the whole tenor of the passage to which it belongs, that it was the difference in the nature and destiny of these spirits respectively to which Solomon meant to refer. The spirit of the beast which goeth doAvnward is mortal — it perishes with the body, which mingles with its kindred dust. The spirit of man is immortal — it "goeth upward;" or, as he otherwise expresses the same truth in the closing chapter of this book, it " retui'ns to God who gave it." Elaborate attempts have some- times been made to prove that the Old Testament church was ignorant of a future state, and that all their notions of rewards and punishments were limited to temporal things, and to this present world. To confute so mischievous and extravagant a theory, even the single passage before us were more than suffi- cient. How could Solomon, when contemplating the iniquities and oppressions that are done under the sun, have consoled himself with the thought that God shall judge the righteous and the wicked, if he had known nothing of the life that lies beyond the grave? How could he have spoken with such emphatic precision and force, of the contrast between the spii'it of the beast that goeth downwards, and of the spirit of man that goeth upward — that returns, at the death of the body, to God who gave it? It is sufficient to notice, in passing, this subject here; occasion will arise, before we are done with this book, to return to it, and to go more fully into it. When that occasion arrives, it will not be difficult to show that, while it is undoubtedly true that it was reserved for our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by way of eminence, to bring "life and immor- DESTINY OF THE HUTVIAN SOUL. 131 tality to light through the gospel," it is not less true that as far back as the times of the antediluvian world, "Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold the Lord Cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judg- ment upon all j" that even before the Mosaic dispensation was given, Abraham sought another country, that is, an heavenly; and that Moses, in Egypt, chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, because he had respect to the recompense of the reward — a reward that would reach infinitely beyond the fleeting season duriug which alone the pleasures of sin could be enjoyed. But without enlarging on these views at present, let us rather return to the profound and suggestive inquiry with which we have now more immediately to do — " Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward?" There are mysteries no doubt connected even with the spirit of the beast. That the beast has a spirit of some kind is manifest, unless we mean to maintain that feeling, perception, memory, intelligence, are properties of matter, and thus to lay the foundation for a system subversive of all belief in the existence of the spiritual world. But whereas the spirit of the beast perishes when its body dies, the spirit of man is invested with the awful attributes of responsibility and im- mortality. The human soul shall survive the stroke that con- signs its material tenement to the tomb, and pass into the pre- sence of that Divine Spirit to whom it must give account of the deeds done in the body, and from whom it sliall receive its fiual and eternal award. Who knoweth so as rightly to conceive of and estimate what this one all-important difference between the spirit of man and the spirit of the beast involves? Knowing that such a difference exists, what self-degradation, what mad- ness is it for man to live on a level with the beasts — to live, that is, for sense and time — busied about what he shall eat, and what he shall drink, and wherewith he shall be clothed, and having no abiding or serious concern about the condition in 132 PERPLEXITIES IN PROVIDENCE. time or the prospects in eternity of his never-dying soul ! What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? Surely these solemn and searching questions of our Saviour would awaken louder and deeper echoes in our breasts if we were more occupied than we are with the .thought of that eternal world which the words of Solomon are fitted to bring so vividly and so impressively before us. We may refuse to have anything to do with God now ; but we cannot refuse to have to do with Him in the world to come. When the body returns to the dust as it was, the soul shall return to God who gave it — to Him who made man a living soul — to Him whose inspiration gave us understanding — who endowed us with reason and conscience, and all those other high capacities by which the human spirit is distinguished, and who, in regard to our use of them all, and of every other talent we have received, hath given this signifi- cant charge — " Occupy till I come." Is our meeting with that holy and righteous and omniscient God, a matter of such inferior moment that we can afibrd to let it slip out of our minds, and to live without any habitual or practical regard to the account we have to give to the Arbiter of our eternal destiny — to Him who can cast us, soul and body, into hell, or assign to us a place among the just made perfect in heaven? Who knoweth what capacities, both of blessedness and woe, are lodged in that immortal spirit with whose ever- lasting destinies we are thus trifling ? Who knoweth either the depths of that endless anguish which these pregnant words describe, "the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched ! " or the heights of that felicity and glory that shall be realized in the presence of God and of the Lamb ! And yet one or other of these must be the final state of every son of Adam. And if we would escape the one and attain to the other, — if we would flee from the wrath that coraeth on the children of disobedience, and lay hold on eternal life, — there is but one course to follow, and that is, to betake ourselves to Christ, and . UNCERTAINTIES OF THE FUTURE. ] 33 to live a life of faith upon the Son of God. " For there is none other name tinder heaven given among men whereby we must be saved" (Acts iv. 12). From these solemn reflections on the ultimate and eternal issues of human life, Solomon derives a new ground for the con- clusion at which he had arrived before, namely, that the part of true wisdom is, not to be unduly solicitous about worldly things, but to make a cheerful use of them while they continue in our possession, and to leave the morrow to take " thought for the things of itself" Speaking of our outward estate, at the 24th verse of the preceding chapter, he had said — " 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." And again, he had repeated that sentiment at the 12th verse of this third chapter, when in reference to temporal things he gave utter- ance to these words — •' I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life." It is obviously, in substance, the same statement which is contained in the verse at present before us. It is a landing-place to which he is conducted by each of the several lines of thought he has been pursuing in the foregoing context. Wherefore should a man vex and harass himself about things which must ever remain to him the merest uncertainties'? He knows not, and cannot know, what even a day shall bring forth — what shall be on the morrow ! How much less can he penetrate into the dis- tant future, and guard himself against all the possible contin- gencies of coming years? Enough for the day is the evil thereof Not, indeed, that we are to run from one extreme to another. Because Solomon, speaking by inspiration of God, would have us to be " without carefulness," we are not therefore to give way to the indolence and improvidence which he elsewhere so emphatically condemns. "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise : which having no guide, over- seer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest" (Pro v. vi. 6). To have no regard to 134 PERPLEXITIES IN PROVIDENCE. those necessities, personal and domestic, which sickness, old age, or death, may involve, is not reverently to trust, but recklessly to tempt tlie providence of God. The part of Christian wisdom is to find out and follow the just mean that lies midway between these opposite errors; and it is this true course which, in the several passages we have specified, Solomon is exhorting us to pursue. In the last of these passages — the one with which this chapter concludes — the idea which seems to be most prominently presented is this, that the present is all that in any sense we can venture to call ours. " For who shall bring a man to see what shall be after him?" Who can tell him whether his successor is to be a wise man or a fool? Who can raise for him the im- penetral)le curtain that hangs over the future, and unfold to his eye the secrets which it conceals? Why, then, should he allow the fleeting concerns of this life to absorb so large a proportion of his time and thoughts? Why, in his engrossing eagerness to lay up treasure for himself or for his heirs, should he condemn himself to a career by which "all his days are sorrows, and his travail gi'ief;" and so that "his heart taketh not rest in the night." Let him "rejoice in his own works" — in the fruits, that is to say, of his own labour — "for that is his portion;" that is, •what God has placed at his disposal, and of which an account shall be required at his hand. Whether it be less or more, let him leai-n " therewith to be content." Let it be sanctified by prayer, and used with thankfulness. Let him take with a grateful heai-t the good which it is fitted and designed to yield, and make it as serviceable as lie can to the furtherance of God's glory. In a word, let him use this world as not abusing it — never for a moment forgetting that the fashion of this world passeth away. If men were more concerned about those interests that lie beyond this world, they would be far less careful and troubled about temporal tilings. When we have been taught by divine grace in some measure to appreciate and realize the infinite THE TRUE SOURCE OF PEACK. 135 worth of that immortal spirit that goetli upward — when, in tho faith of those great and precious promises wliich arc all yea and amen in Christ Jesus, we have committed that priceless soul unto Him in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator, we shall find it a comparatively easy task to leave whatever else con- cerns us in His hands. He that spared not His own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall He not, with him also, freely give us all things? " Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin : and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, ye of little faith?" (Matt. vi. 28-30.) 13G VANITIES UNDER THE SUN. CHAPTER VII. EVILS AND FOLLIES. " So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and l>ehold the tears of siick as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead, more than the living which are yet alive. Yea, better is he than both they which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun. "Again, I considered all travail, and every right work, that for this a man is envied of his neighbour. This is also vanity and vexation of spirit. The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh. Better is an handful icith quietness, than both the hands full trith travail and vexation of spirit. " Then I returned, and I saw vanity under the sun. There is one alone, and there is not a second; yea, he liath neither cliild nor brother: yet is there no end of all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither saith he, For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good ? This is also vanity, yea, it is a sore travaU." — Eccles. iv. 1-8. TOWARDS the close of tlie preceding cliai^ter, Solomon had been dealing with the careless and carnal multitude, who live for time only and take no thought for eternity. By following such a coui'se they were doing what they could to lower them- selves to the base level of the beasts that perish. They were disre- garding the momentous distinction between the immortal spirit of man which goeth upward, and the mortal spirit of the beast which goeth downward to the earth. In a word, they were sowing to the flesli, of the flesh to reap corruption — gaining the world at the expense of losing their souls. From his melancholy survey of tliis too numerous class of men, and from the solemn reflections it had suggested, he reverts, in the passage now before us, to a suljject which had i)rcviously attracted his notice, and con- cerning which he had already spoken in brief but most significant OPPRESSION WITHOUT COMFORT. 137 terms — " He returned and considered all the oppressions that were done under the sun." The spectacle was too exciting and painful to be soon or easily forgotten. It had taken a powerful hold of his just and benevolent mind. He had consoled himself indeed, in his former contemplation of it, with the sustaining thought that these iniquities were not without a remedy — that there was a day coming when these Avrongs should be all redressed, when a righteous, infallible, and omnipotent Judge should vindicate the cause of injured innocence, and render to the authors of the injustice according to their deeds. But though he had thus pointed, in clear and explicit language, to the source of strong consolation which it is the privilege of all who know and fear God to enjoy under the trials to which, in this present evil world, their faith and patience may be sub- jected, he could not forget the distressing fact that, among the countless victims of injustice and tyranny, there were thousands and tens of thousands who were utter strangers to the blessed privilege now spoken of, and whose present sufferings were unre- lieved by any hope of a better state of things beyond the grave. It was, perhaps, in meditating on the condition of this truly miserable class of men that his heart was affected with the deepest sorrow. " So I returned," he says, " and considered all the oiDpressions that are done under the sun, and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter ; and on the side of their oppressors there was power, but they had no comforter." Twice he repeats it, as the crowning feature of their affliction, that "they had no comforter." It is possible, indeed, that this language may mean no more than that they had no earthly friend — none who would venture, in the flice of triumphant persecution, to speak a word for the poor victim, or to pour a single expression of sympathy and commiseration into his ear. We know, indeed, how selfish human nature is, and how ready the multitude are to forsake any one wlio has fallen, from whatever cause, under the frown of men in power. As Solomon elsewhere observes, " Tlie poor is liated, even of his 138 VANITIES UNDER THE SUN. own neighbour : but tlie rich liatli many friends " (Prov. xiv. 20). Nor is it difficult to understand how deeply this feeling of desertion and loneliness, this absence of any human com- forter, must aggravate the anguish of the unpitied sufferer. We can well imagine, for example, how the iron of this trying consideration must have entered into the soul of the youthful Joseph, when, overwhelmed by accusations that covered him with infamy, he found himself suddenly abandoned by every friend he had made in the land of Egypt, and, all-innocent as he was, cast, amid shouts of execration, into a dungeon, as if he had been the vilest of mankind. It does seem, however, as if this significant statement, that " they had no comforter," were intended here to have a wider range and a deeper meaning. When he had spoken before, at the 1 6 th verse of the preceding chapter, of the wrongs inflicted by injustice and cruelty, it seems natural to infer that the sufferers he had there more immediately in view were the sufferers for righteousness' sake. The consolation applicable to their case he derived from the fact that "God shall judge the righteous and the wicked." It could not be said of them that they had no comforter. Even in the very presence of their haughty oppres- sors they could encourage their hearts in the Lord. Daniel was not without a comforter when, in the face of the appalling prospect of being cast into the den of lions, " he gave thanks before his God as he did aforetime" (Dan. vi. 10). Stephen was not without a comforter when, at the very moment that his enemies were gnashing upon him with their teeth, and were preparing to stone him to death, he saw heaven opened, and his face shone as it had been the face of an angel (Acts vi., vii.) Our own Scottish martyr was not without a comforter when, with his foot upon the scaffold and dying by the ruthless hand of persecution for his testimony to Christ's crown and covenant, he exclaimed in an ecstasy of joy, '•' Farewell, sun, moon, and stars! Welcome, God and Father! Welcome, sweet Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant ! Welcome, blessed OPPRESSION WITHOUT COMFORT. 130 Spirit of grace and God of all consolation! Welcome glory! Welcome eternal life, and welcome death !" These, and all such true witnesses for God, had an all-sufh- cient and unfailing source of comfort — one which the world cannot give, and which the world cannot take away. They had the comfort involved in that precious saying of our Lord, " Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven" (Matt. v. 11, 12). But there are, alas! sufferers from the oppression of their fellows whose distress has no such glorious alleviation — sufferers whom oppression is making miserable in the life that now is, and who yet have no well-grounded hope of deliverance beyond the grave. As regards their human oppressors, they may be innocent and objects of pity, but as regards God they are verily guilty, and yet they have been at no pains to learn what they must do to be saved. Of such, when earthly suiTering over- takes them, it may be said with an awful force of meaning, that they have no comforter. This life is their all, and yet, in the circumstances which Solomon describes, it has been turned for them into a scene of gloom and wretchedness. It is as if the avenger had come to torment them before the time; it is as if the luxurious rich man of our Saviour's parable had, in the midst of his career, been stripped of his gay clothing and his sump- tuous fare, and been made to exchange places with the diseased and helpless beggar that had been laid down at his door. If their view of life were the true one — if the possessions and plea- sures of this world were man's chief good, then, upon such a footing, well might Solomon "praise the dead which were already dead, more than the living which were yet alive." Or, going further still, well might he adopt the conclusion that better than " both they is he which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work which is done under the sun." We cannot suppose this strong language to have been used in any UO VANITIES UNDER THE SUN. other tliaii such a rehitive aud restricted sense as has now been pointed out. If the dead have died in their sins, then it is not and cannot be better with them than with the living which are yet alive. The laud of the living is the place of hope. However miserable man's outward condition in this life may be, there is still hope for the salvation of his soul; but in the grave there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, that can avail to recal that righteous but awful sentence — "The soul that siuneth it shall die." It would seem, therefore, reasonable to infer that, in speak- ing as he does in the 2d and 3d verses, Solomon is looking at the world from the world's own point of view. He is dealing with worldly men, and he is trying to show them how foolish is the choice they have made in setting their affections on the things of sense and time. What could be more fitted to con- vince them of this truth than the fact here presented, that so many and so intolerable are the wrongs and miseries to which human life in this world is often subject, that if this world be all, it were better never to have been born into it? Such a consideration has no weight with the child of God. His trea- sure is in the heavens, and his heart is there also ; and even the worst of those afflictions which on earth he may be called to endure, are all working for him a far more exceeding and eter- nal weight of glory in the world to come. They are a part of the stern though salutary discipline by which he is trained for glory, honour, and immortality. But Solomon's argument is irresistible as regards the men of this world. They are seeking their good things in time ; this life is the portion on which they have set their hearts. Is it a portion worthy of their choice? Is it not the very extreme of folly to stake their hap- piness on a state of things liable to such evils as are every day afflicting the temporal condition of man? Ought not the very circumstance that this world is cursed by such oppressions as Solomon has here in view — tliat men in multitudes are so ha- rassed and trampled on, so robbed and spoiled by the tyranny and THE WORLDS INGRATITUDE. 1 H cruelty of tlieir fellows, as to make death preferable to life nay, as even to raise the question whether it were not better never to have been called into existence, and thus to have been spared the misery of seeing " the evil work that is done under the sun ;" — ought not the very circumstance that this world is the scene of such oppressions to wean men's hearts from it, and to stir them up to seek another country, that is, an heavenly 1 Happy those who have learned to endure these, and all the other afflictions of this present time, as seeing Him who is invisible ! He will not leave them comfortless ; He will come unto them in every time of need. For "now, thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and He that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name : thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee : and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee : wheu thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burnt, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord tliy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour" (Isa. xliii. 1, 2). But having thus sought to draw one proof of the vanity of this world from the fact that bad men have so often a high place in it, he jDroceeds to elicit another proof of the same thing from the fact that good men commonly meet iu this world with a very ill reward. He had seen power on the side of those that were oppressors of mankind, and he had also seen ingratitude and enmity tracking the course and blackening the fame of those that were the benefactors of their age. '•' Again I considered all travail and every right work, that for this a man is en^•ied of his neighbour. This is also vanity and vexation of spirit." In looking abroad upon society Solomon had observed, here and there, men of a noble and generous spirit ; men who laid them- selves out to promote the welfare of those around them — who spent their time and strength in self-denying labours which had no other object Init the public good. These were the patriots and philanthropists of their day. How were they treated? U2 VANITIES UNDER THE SUN. They made for themselves a name, it is true; they attracted much notice ; the world could not refuse to render a certain measure of homage to their superior worth, and to their enlight- ened zeal, and to their disinterested benevolence. But the very distinction they had thus gained embittered the spirit and sharpened the tongue of envy, and drew out against them the hatred and opposition of every mean and malignant mind. Need we wonder at this, when we rememl^er how that acceptance with God, which the simple faith and humble piety of Abel secured for him, armed against him the murderous hand of Cain? how the mere prospect of Josepii's future elevation so envenomed the liearts of his brethren that they sold him for a slave? how even the pre-eminent meekness with which Moses bore his ]ionours as the leader and the law-giver of Israel, could not save him from the envious insurrection of the rebellious company of Korah? how the acknowledgment of the signal services of David in the slaughter of the Philistine, and the consequent deliverance of his countiy, made him the victim of that remorse- less persecution at the hands of Saul which again and again had so nearly cost him his life, and from whose dark malevolence he never escaped till Saul himself had perished? Solomon had no doubt himself experienced, in one way or another, substantially the same thing. He, too, had engaged in "much travail and in many right works." The studies he had prosecuted, and the learning he had acquired, and the services he had rendered, by his enlightened policy, to the stability and prosperity of liis kingdom, and, above all, his great achievement of the building of the temple, and the setting in order of the things that beloDged to the public worship of the God of Israel — these were labours which had made him deservedly renowned ; and we may rest assured that all this fame had not gathered around him witliout stirring up the spirit of envy in neighbouring kings and princes whom his glory was casting into the shade, as well as in many of the chief captains and mighty men of his own land. It was so then, and it is so still. No man can rise far above his THE WORLDS ENVIOUS SPIRIT. 143 fellows — however much of self-sacrificing travail it may liave cost him to do so, aud however right the works may be which have secured his elevation — without begetting a grudge in some jealous mind, and finding that many are ready to speak evil of his good. And what does this prove 1 It proves how poor a thing it is to labour for a mere earthly reward. If human virtue had no other or better acknowledgment than it receives at the hands of the world, it would have little indeed to sustain it. Even such a character and life as that of the apostle Paul could not save him from the detraction and dislike of the many would-be rivals who, in the presence of his illustrious labours and glorious successes, felt themselves sinking into merited insignificance. But none of these things moved him, because it was not his aim to please men, but to please God, which trieth the heart. Therefore it was that he accounted it a licrht thins to be judged of men, or of man's judgment. And only those who walk by the same rule, and live and labour for the same exalted end, can be enabled, like him, to rise above the troubled atmosphere of an envious world, and to have this for their rejoicing, even the testimony of their conscience that, in sim- plicity and godly sincerity, not by fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, they have their conversation in the world. The reflection which Solomon had thus made on the unworthy treatment so often received by the man who has been devoting himself to right works, to useful and honourable labours, he follows up with a statement which, at first sight, appears some- what obscure — " The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh. Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit." This is only one of many examples in which the rapid transitions, and the sen- tentious brevity, characteristic of this book, create no inconsider- able difficulty in rightly expounding it. The meaning to be put on these two verses must be somewhat afiected by the question — Do they belong to what goes before, or to what comes after them 1 does their connection lie with the preceding or with the succeed- 144; VANITIES UNDER THE SUN. ing context 1 If tliey are to be regarded as a sequel to the state- ment contained in the 4th verse, they ought, apparently, to be interpreted thus : The fool, when he sees what has now been de- scribed, — when he observes how the laborious and self-denying man, who tasks himself so severely for the purpose of doing good to others, is, after all, so ill requited, — the fool, when he sees this, thinks himself entitled to conclude that the true wisdom is to take his ease, and not to burden himself with great efforts for any purpose whatever. Accordingly he folds his arms, and gives him- self up to a life of indolent self-indulgence, heedless of the fact that by so doing he is eating his own flesh, preying upon his own comfort, wasting the means of his own support, and bring- ing himself thereby to inevitable want and ruin. To give a colour of wisdom to this folly, and to encourage himself in cleav- ing to it, he has recourse to the very excellent sentiment that " better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit." The maxim is just and true, no doubt, as expressing the contentment which a wise and good man feels in contrasting his little store with the riches and grandeur of the great. His " handful," earned by honest indus- try, enjoyed with quietness in his own humble sphere, and sweetened by a sense of the favour and blessing of God, is a for better portion than "both the hands full," surrounded with all the anxieties, and cares, and distractions which wealth and worldly rank usually carry in their train. This, or something like this, is the construction that must be put on these two verses, if we read them in connection with the statement by which they are immediately preceded. So understood, they convey an impor- tant lesson. They remind us that neither the travail— that is, the care and labour — which a life devoted to right works may in- volve, nor the ingratitude such a life may meet with at the hands of envious and ungenerous minds, should be allowed to deter us from adopting it and steadfastly pursuing it. They teach us tliat sloth and self-indulgence is like eating one's own flesh — a process of self-destruction — a career which can lead to nothing IDLENESS AND ITS FRUITS. 145 but misery and destitution ; and that, however noLle a spirit of genuine contentment may be, there is no merit in being con- tented with a poverty that is self-imposed — that is the fruit of idleness and improvidence. "Godliness with contentment is great gain" (1 Tim. vi. 6). " Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith" (Prov. XV. 16). It is not the limited provision tliat is itself the good thing; but it is the cheerful and child-like spirit that accepts it, such as it is, from the hand of God with thankfulness, and therefore receives His blessing with it. But this neither is, nor can be, the spirit of the fool who shrinks from self-sacrificing labour — who prefers his own ease to a life of useful and honourable toil, and upon whom want is sure to come in the long-run, " like an armed man." He may pretend to moralize upon the supe- riority of a "handful with quietness," to "both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit ; " but the result of his mean and discreditable choice will usually be, to have both the hands empty, and an abundant portion of travail and vexation of spirit besides. If, on the other hand, these verses are to be read in connec- tion with what immediately follows — if they are to be taken as introductory to the truly graphic picture of the miser which the 7tli and 8th verses hold up to our view — it will be necessary to modify somewhat the exposition of them which has been already made. In this case, instead of putting' the words of the Gth verse into the mouth of the fool, and treating them as the plausible pretence, by the help of which he seeks to excuse his own selfish indolence, they ought ratlier to be regarded as the words of Solomon himself, and as giving expression to the sentiment of true wisdom as contrasted with the self-destruc- tive folly of the sluggard on the one hand, and with the self-tor- menting folly of the slave of avarice, of whom he is now about to speak, on the other. Upon the whole, however, the view previously stated, which assumes the connection of the 5th and Gth verses with what vfeut before, seems the more natural and satisfactory, and best IIG VANITIES UNDER THE SUN. aeoords with the tenor of the 7th verse, which is so expressed as to suggest the idea that Solomou is here entering on a new subject, distinct from anything in the preceding context. " Then I returned," he goes on to say, " and I saw vanity under the sun." Having disposed of that example of the vanity of this world, which he found in the envy that assails a life of useful and honourable labour, he now turns to another and still stranger instance of vanity — to that, namely, of the man who toils him- self to death in amassing riches for no end at all — riches which he has no offspring to inherit, and which, nevertheless, he has not the heart himself to use. " There is one alone," he says, describing this unhappy and sordid being, " and there is not a second ; yea, he hath neither child nor brother : yet is there no end of all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither saith he, For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good? This is also vanity, yea, it is a sore travail." Such a passage as this occurring in a book that was written nearly three thousand years ago, is a striking confirmation of the identity of human nature. How true to the very letter is this pointed de- scription, as applicable to multitudes at the present day! In every community, and in every grade of life, from the sweeper of a street-crossing to the ruler of a kingdom, specimens of this sort of vanity may always be found. Men have been known to spend their lives as walidering beggars, clothed in rags, and with scarcely a roof to shelter them, and yet leaving at their death an amount of treasiu-e that would have sufficed not only for all their own wants, but that would have enabled them extensively to relieve the wants of others. And so, in different and far higher social spheres, there have been, and there now are, many who toil on to their dying day, accumulating and hoarding up piles of wealth which they have not the heart either to enjoy or to give away; and this all the while that there is perhaps no human being in whom they feel any special interest, or whom they have any pleasure in thinking of, as their successor and heir. Of all the forms of worldliness, this surely is the most AVARICE AND ITS FRUITS. 1 1-7 singular — that men should thus voluntarily starve themselves in the midst of abundance, and wear themselves out with labours which yield them nothing but an ever- increasing load of anxiety and care. Of how many sources of hajipiness are they robbing themselves by giving way to this penurious and selfish spirit? How unlike is their position to that of the open-hearted and open-handed patriarch who could speak of the manner in which he had used his prosperity thus: "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me : because I delivered the poor that cried, and the father- less, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me : and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy" (Job xxix. 11-13). Truly it is more blessed to give than to receive. Apart altogether from the account every man has to give, of the use made of his worldly means, at the coming of the Lord — apart from the explicit assurance that not even a cup of cold water given in the spirit of the gospel shall then lose its reward — there is in the very act of doing good — in alleviating human suffering, and light- ing up the gloom of human sorrow — in bringing help, temporal or spiritual, to them that were ready to perish ; — there is, in the very doing of such deeds of benevolence, a luxury of joy, which the poor narrow-souled miser, with all his heaps of gold, can never know. He seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him. The more he has, the less he is disposed to give. For such is the tendency of this con- suming thirst of gold, the more it is indulged the more insati- able it becomes. And what a pitiable sight the old miser is ! Loving none, he is by none beloved. Every day he lives is grudged by the hungry expectants of his treasure ; and if they hasten to gather around his dying bed, it is not to smooth his uneasy couch, or to whisper words of consolation in his ear, but to be ready, like the gathering eagles, for the prey. Surely of such a life it may be emphatically said — " This is also vanity, yea, it is a sore travail." ]4:S VANITIES UNDER THE SUN. Perhaps, however, it may uot be out of place, in connection with this subject, to observe, that there are multitudes who will readily enough condemn the conduct of the miser, while yet their own way of life, though entirely different, is really no better than his. Mere sordid avarice is not tlie prevailing vice of the pre- sent day. It is not saving but spending — it is not penurious- ness but prodigality, which is the characteristic of our times. Men are, indeed, hasting, with unprecedented eagerness, to be rich ; but it is not, in general, so much with a view to amass and lioard up a fortune, as to indulge in luxurious living, and to surround tliemselves with everything that is fitted to gratify the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. At no previous period, perhaps, was the love of display and of carnal self-indulgence so prevalent or so conspicuous. Frugality seems everywhere to be giving way to a wasteful extravagance in dress, in the style of entertainments, and of pleasure-seeking in every form. Who can doubt that this state of things is pregnant with evil? Is there not cause to fear, that by the shifts to which it tempts many to betake themselves, it is breaking down that commercial honour by which our country was wont to be dis- tinguished, and begetting a laxity of jDrinciple in regard to pecuniary transactions, the painful results of which are be- coming so common as almost to have ceased to startle the public mind. Every day is bringing to light frauds so flagrant, and breaches of trust so shameful, as are fitted to shake all confi- dence between man and man. If these distressing occurrences be traced to their source, they will be found, to a large extent, to originate in that passion fpr show and self-gratification which is one of tlie most noticeable, and, to a thoughtful mind, one of the most ominous signs of the times. Verily it would seem as if we were falling on those perilous times when " men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, . . . traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God" (2 Tim. iii. 1-3). It is surely high time that both the PRODIGALITY AND ITS FRUITS. 149 pulpit and the press were lifting u]^ a voice against this great and growing evil — an evil which, in proportion as it spreads, ^must sap the very foundations of spiritual life, and dissolve the very bonds which keep human society together. The spirit now described is the very opposite of that wliich the religion of Christ dictates and inspires. " If any man will come after me," said the Lord Jesus, "let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me" (Matt. xvi. 24). The Christian life — if it is to be really maintained and followed — demands the constant exercise of that noble self-restraint to which Paul made reference when he said — "Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things" (1 Cor. ix. 25); "I keep my body imder and bring it into subjection" (v. 27). Christianity, if it can live at all, most certainly can- not thrive in the relaxing atmosphere of habitual self-indul- gence. It is a plant which needs, for its vigorous growth and full development, the bracing air of many an active effort, and the pruning-knife of many a sharp and cutting trial. " For the grace of God that briugeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present world ; looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Him- self for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works " (Titus ii. 12-1 4). Let all, therefore, and especially let the young, be upon their guard against that seductive, pleasure-loving spirit which is now so widely abroad, and whose fatal results are so pain- fully manifest in the increasing amount of profligacy and crime. " Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world — the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever" (1 John ii. 15-17). 150 THOUGHTS AND COUNSELS OF WISDOM. CHAPTER YIII. DEEP THOUGHTS AND WISE COUNSELS. " Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he faUeth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. " Better is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished. For out of prison he cometh to reign; whereas also he that is bom in his kingdom becometh poor. I considered all the living wliich walk imder the sim, with the second child that shall stand up in his stead. The7-e is no end of all the people, even of all that have been before them: they also that come after shall not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and vexation of spirit." — Eccles. iv. 9-16. " Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools : for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not tliine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God : for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few. For a dream cometh through tlie miiltitude of business ; and a fool's voice is knoicyi by multitude of words. When thoii vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it ; for he hath no pleasure in fools : pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin ; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an en-or : wherefore should God be angiy at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands ? For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities : but fear thou God. " If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter : for he that is higher than the highest regardeth ; and there be higher than they. Moreover the profit of the earth is for aU : the king hininelf is served by the field. " He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver ; nor he that loveth abun- dance with increa.se : this is also vanity. When goods increase, they are increased that eat them : and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes? The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich wUl not sufi"er him to sleep." — Eccles. v. 1-12. IT^ROM the sordid and solitary miser, so vividly sketched in . the immediately preceding context, Solomon is led to con- template the happier condition of those who live and labour in close alliance and cordial fellowship with one another. The ADVANTAGES OF UNION. l.')] miser passes his days in a state of friendless isolation. It is the penalty of his exclusive selfishness ; for the measure which a man metes out to his neighbours, is usually meted back to him- self. If he cares for no one, it will generally be found that no one cares for him; and there is both justice and goodness in the constitution of things which causes this result to arise. If any one will so forget and disregard the claims of that common humanity to which he belongs, as to have sympathy for no wants but his own, it is well for him to be compelled to feel that his heartless indifference is bringing its punishment along with it, and that what he soweth he must expect to reap. The coldness he meets with when he is himself overtaken by adver- sity, may thus serve to correct his sin, and to teach him that he must love, if he would himself be loved. The affectionate response, on the other hand, which disinterested kindness seldom fails to call forth, furnishes a continual incentive to exercise that kindness, and thereby binds, by a thousand links, the human family together. The union and co-operation to which we are thus impelled, by a great law of our being, are indis- pensable to the welfare of mankind. It is not good for man to be alone. In giving him, at the first, an help meet for him, his Divine Creator proclaimed the fact, that he was meant for society. His physical comfort, and the development of his moral and intellectual nature, alike imi)eratively require close and constant intercourse with fellowmen. We are so formed as to be mutually and continually dependent on one another. Nothing, therefore, can be more natural and appropriate than the transition, by which the inspired writer of this book passes, from reviewing the dreary loneliness of the self-seeking miser, to the consideration of the many important benefits which flow from the relationships of social life. The general proposition which he has it in view to establish and illustrate, he announces in these words — " That two are better than one." This truth, indeed, may appear so obvious as to stand in no 152 THOUGHTS AND COUNSELS OF WISDOM. need of argument. It does not follow, however, that we have sufficiently considered it. Selfishness is a principle so deeply sciited in our corrupt nature, that we cannot too often, or too urgently, be put upon our guard against it. There are obviously two ways in which this may be done. The one is by exposing the sinfulness and folly of the thing itself; and this Solomon has already done, by holding up a very signal specimen of sel- fishness before us, and bidding us mark its odious character, and its miserable fruits. The other way is by commending its op- posite ; by presenting, in contrast with it, that more genial and brotherly spirit that makes us cling to our fellowmen, and prompts us to do unto others as we would that they should do unto us. It is this second way of dissuading us from selfish- ness which is followed in the passage at present before us. Sel- fishness tends to separation. It dislocates society; it shuts a man out, to a large extent, from the sympathy and the kindly sen-ices of those around him. He withholds those services and that sympathy from them, and as the inevitable consequence, they are commonly withheld from him. His greedy and short- sighted eagerness to do all, and have all, for himself, ordinarily, if not necessarily, leads to his being left to fight the great battle of life unfriended and alone. If he fall, there is none to lift him up. If the chill of some sore calamity seizes him, there is no warm friend at hand to cheer and revive him. If an enemy assail him, there is no arm raised in his defence. But how different, in all these respects, is the experience of the man wlio heartily acknowledges the claims of his fellow-creatures, wlio strives, througli grace, to love his neighbour as himself, and who thus gathers around him the kindly feelings of all who know him. He finds how emphatically true it is that " two are better than one." His fellow-feeling brings its own reward. It {Lssures liim of help in every time of need. "Good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give " into his bosom. But while this appeara to be the loading idea that is meant to be THE UNION OF DOMESTIC LIFE. 153 conveyed by the statements contained in tlie verses, from the 9th to the 12th inclusive, now under review, it may l^c proper to examine these statements somewhat more in detail. It is not to the benefits, in a general sense, of an unselfish, kindly, sympathizing spirit, that alone a reference is here intended; but also, and more specifically, to the benefits of that communion and co-operation which grow out of the various relationships of social life. Of all these, the relationships of the domestic circle are the type and source. The family is the germ and model of society. Of the two whom God hath joined in that primary and fundamental alliance, it is pre-eminently true, that they are better than one. They are the supjDort and the solace of each other amid all the duties and difficulties, perplexities and trials, of their earthly career. In so far as the mutual obligations of their union are faithfully observed, they have a good reward for their labour. They never know what it is to suffer without sympathy, or to sorrow without consolation. And by their combined efforts — the one in providing the means of subsistence, the other in household cares — they secure, under the divine blessing, between them, the many inestimable comforts of a peaceful and prosperous home. Their children are like olive plants around their table, and in their God-fearing and well- ordered dwelling there is heard, morning and evening, the "melody of joy and health." What could present a more beau- tiful or impressive contrast to the cold isolation of selfishness, or more conclusively demonstrate that two are better than one? It is not, however, in domestic life alone that this superiority of union and combination is exhibited. When our Lord com- missioned the seventy disciples to go out on their great errand to the towns and villages of Judea, he sent them forth two and two. It is true, indeed, that two cannot walk together except they be agreed. When Paul and Barnabas fell into discord they separated one from another; and while that discord lasted could no longer carry on conjointly their evangelistic work. It is not union, therefore, of any kind, and on any terms, that Solomon 10 l.')]. THOUGHTS AND COUNSELS OF WISDOM. means to celebrate ; but imiou as the symbol and fruit of mutual sympathy and love. And yet, so indisi^en sable is union to the successful prosecution of almost every undertaking in which man Is called to engage, that when Paul and Barnabas could no longer continue together, each of them selected a new associate. " Bar- nabas took ]\Iark and stiiled into Cyprus ; and Paul chose Silas, .... and he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churclies" (Acts xv. 30-41). It is this felt dependence on one another — this instinctive longing for the countenance, encourage- ment, and aid of fellowmen — that has given birth to civil society itself, and to all those social and political institutions that have grown out of it. All organization and government, whether in the state or in the church, are simply the following out of Solomon's fundamental principle, that " two are better than one." We are so used to the many inestimable advantages which result to us, as a nation and people, from the working of that principle, that we are not always or adequately alive to their value. If society were dissolved, and every man were left to do that which seemed right in his own eyes, as in the days when there was no king in Israel, the terror, and misery, and helplessness of such a state of things would soon teach even the dullest to understand that two are better than one. What were the security for either property or life if no one could count on the assistance of his neighbour, to shield him from the cupidity and the violence of depraved humanity. It is union that gives to a kingdom safety and strength. It is union that gives to a church its moral force — that makes it powerful as the adversary of error and evil, and stciidfast as the pillar and ground of the truth. How wise, then, and good is that constitution of our nature which not only in- clines, but compels us to lean on one another for mutual support. It imposes a constant check and restraint on human selfishness, at the same time that it serves continually, and in a thousand ways, to cultivate and call forth all those kindlier and more amiable afioctions on which our earthly comfort and happiness ' 80 largely depend. Let it not, however, be for a moment for- THE BOND OF PERFECTNESS. 155 gotten tliat union and co-operation, whether in private or puljlio life, are by no means synonymous with the renunciation of selfishness. Alas ! how often are the closest confederacies formed both in the social and political world, for the very purpose of carrying into effect schemes of the grossest and most iniquitous selfishness. Herod and Pontius Pilate strike hands — the Gen- tiles and the people of Israel forget their enmities and form a league — to indulge their common enmity to the holy Son of God. Our mutual dependence, and the many intimate and endearing relationships to which it has given rise, do something to mitigate the inborn selfishness of our nature ; but divine grace alone can subdue it. Charity — the love which the gospel of Christ, through the working of his Spirit, inspires — " is the bond of perfectness." Where this bond is firmly established, there will all those happy consequences of which Solomon speaks, as resulting from the fellowships of human society, be abundantly realized. It is when the union is that of Christian hearts for Christian ends, that the sympathy is complete and the fruit truly blessed. Allusion has been already made, in the course of these obser- vations, to that great law of God's moral government according to which " what a man soweth that shall he also reap." It is a part'of this righteous law that the selfish man should forfeit the sympathy of his fellows. But as, in this present probationary state of being, God deals with men, not according to their desert, but according to His own abundant mercy, showing kindness to the unthankful and the evil; even so, if we would be the children of our heavenly Father, we too must walk by the same rule. " If ye love them which love you," said the Lord Jesus, "what thank have je, for sinners also love those tliat love them^ And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye, for sinners also do even the same ] " (Luke vi. 32, 33.) It is the duty and the iirivilege of the Christian to •stand on a higher platform than that of rigid justice and naked right. God's grand and gracious aim in the gospel is to over- 150 THOUGHTS AND COUNSELS OF WISDOM. come evil Avitli good, and this must be our aim too. To tlio diikl of God it belongs to cherish the spirit, and to imitate the example, of Ilim -who loved ns and gave himself for us — not rendering evil for evil, but contrariwise, overcoming evil with good. It is according to this method that God has won every converted sinner back to himself. We love God because He first loved us. His love, gloriously manifested in the person and work of Christ, is the prime motive — the grand constraining principle which the gospel employs, to subdue the enmity and to soften the impenitence of our hard and stony hearts — ^to dislodge the fears and to engage the confidence of our unbelieving minds. As God has thus dealt with us, so should we deal with one another; for thus is it written — '• Love ye your enemies, and do good and lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest" (Luke vi. 3o). It is by thus heaping coals of fire upon the frozen heart of selfishness that we may hope, under the divine blessing, to dissolve it into sympathy and love. And just in proportion as we carry this forbearing, forgiving, fraternal spirit with us into all the relationships, whether of domestic or social life, may we expect them to be fruitful of good to those with whom we are associated, and full of blessing to ourselves. Then, if we fall, we shall never want one to lift us up, and never experience the woe that belongs to him who is alone when he falleth ; in our season of affliction we shall never know the cold and cheerless Since it is so that God is not mocked — tliat Ho will not suffer His name to be taken in vain — there is great reason that in the matter of making vows, we should have special regard to the caution of the 2d verse, and not be rash with our mouth, nor let our heart be hasty to utter anything before God. It is in the way of bringing that caution to bear upon the making of vows that Solomon goes on to say — "Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel that it was an error : wherefore should God be angry at thy voice and destroy the work of thine hands? For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities : but fear thou God." By uttering a rash vow, and binding himself to some lawful, it may be, but still purely voluntary exercise of self-denial, many a man has put a stum- bling-block in the way of his own conscience, and brought reproach upon the cause of God, and evil upon his own soul. This seems evidently what is meant by causing his flesh to sin. The very restraint imposed by the vow provokes very often, in the man's carnal nature, the resistance by which the vow is broken. Hence the danger of attempting to set up stricter or pui'er rules of living than those which are embodied in the law of God. Where that holy, just, and good law has left man free, it is seldom safe to be bound. It is only too well known to what scandalous enormities the violation of this principle has led in the Church of Rome ; how her forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, under pretence of promot- ing the attainment of angelic virtue, have issued, in the case of countless multitudes, not in raising them above the level of men, but in sinking them below the level of the beasts. It is not the least of the many evils connected with these gratuitous vows that they lay snares for the conscience. Find- ing it vexatious to adhere to the vow, the man who has wilfully put himself under it is tempted to invent excuses for setting it aside. He says before the angel—" It was an error." To the priest, whose duty it was, under the Old Testament economy, 170 THOUGHTS AND COUNSELS OF WISDOM. to deal with religious vows, and who seems here to be spoken of under the name of the ansrel, or messeuirer of the Lord of hosts, all sorts of pretences were no doubt often alleged for get- ting rid of the obligations which the vow imposed. But by no such disingenuous devices could the force of the vow be broken. The vow might be rash; God had not required it at the man's hand; but he had freely, and of his own will, placed himself under it ; and the dishonest attempt to escape from his pledge could have no other effect than to provoke the divine displea- sure. He might deceive the priest, he might even so debauch his conscience as at length to deceive himself by his dexterous evasions; but God cannot be deceived, and lying lips are ever an abomination in His sight. The consideration of such fatal consequences as resulting from rashly contracted vows, leads Solomon to revert to the comparison he had employed before to illustrate the utterances of the fool. Dreams are vanities, and so also are the fool's many words. Had he been more swift to hear, and more slow to speak, it had been better for him. Beware, therefore, of fol- lowing in his steps. Cherish a more thoughtful and reverential spirit. " Fear thou God ! " Eemember that in all vows, and in all duties, it is with Him thou hast to do. Kealize His pre- sence, and do all things as in His sight. Let thy heart be right with God, and all shall be well ! At the 8th verse of the 5th chapter, Solomon returns to a sub- ject of which he had spoken once and again before — the subject of the wrongs and cruelties which men are often called, in this fallen world, to suffer at the hands of despotic power. The light, however, in which it is here presented is not the same as that in which it was formerly exhibited ; and the lessons which it is here his design to draw from it are different too. In his pre- vious allusions to the oppressions that are done under the sun, our attention was chiefly directed to the victims of the tyranny; and the use made of the subject was simply to illus- trate the vanity of tliis world. In the case with which we THERE IS A GOD THAT JUDGETH. 177 have now to deal, it is rather the tyrants themselves who are held up to our view ; and the purpose meant to be served, is to guard us against a very fatal error into which the sight of their iniquitous proceedings might otherwise tempt us to fall. When we look at the victims — when we behold the tears of them that are oppressed — when we see them groaning under a yoke of bondage from which they have no power to set themselves free, the conclusion is obvious and irresistible — What a vanity must their life be, if they have no portion beyond death and tlie grave ! It is a different and still more painful thought that suggests itself to the mind when we turn to contemplate the unjust judge, or the insolent and remorseless ruler, who is trampling them beneath his feet. Is the existence of such a state of things, we are ready to say, compatible with the idea of a divine govern- ment ? Horrid doubts and dark suspicions begin to arise as to the character of the Supreme Being, who not only permits these enormities to be jDerpetrated, but seems also to allow them to go unpunished. In the immediately preceding context Solo- mon had been warning men to beware of mocking God with a feigned allegiance — of turning their acts of religious worship into an empty form — of saying to Him, Lord, Lord, and failing to do the things which He commands. " Fear thou God," was the solemn injunction with which he had just wound up his earnest exhortations on that point. But was it possible to cherish this holy and reverential fear in the face of such crimes as God seems to wink at? It was, perhaps, to meet some rising thought like this that Solomon subjoined this 8th verse to those which had gone before it. It takes a stumbling-block out of the way of that piety which he had been seeking to inculcate. It virtually says, — Be not dissuaded from fearing God by any of those perplexities which beset the existing condition of things. " Fret not thyself because of evil-doers: neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity" (Psalm xxxvii. 1). " If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, mai'vel not at the matter." Let not 178 THOUGHTS AND COUNSELS OF WISDOM. such a spectacle startle or discourage any child of God ; let him remember that this is a fallen world, where evil has, for wise though inscrutable reasons_, been permitted for a time to get the upper hand. It will not be always thus. There is a Power, Almighty though unseen, that will yet rectify all these dis- orders, and render to every man according to his deeds; ^for He til at is higher than the highest regardeth ; and there be higher than they.' " Even in this present world the oppressor is often made ter- ribly to exeuiplify this truth. Take the case of Ahab and Jezebel, conspiring to destroy Naboth, in order to get posses- sion of his vineyard. A mere whim of the king must be grati- fied, even at the expense of shedding innocent blood. The intended victim has right upon his side, but he has nothing more. On the side of the oppressors there is power, and they have no scruples about putting it in force. Naboth is doomed. Servile agents of the court charge him with blasphemy and treason. False witnesses are suborned to perjure themselves, and to swear away his life ; and, guiltless though he be, he is torn from his weeping family, dragged from his peaceful home, condemned as a malefactor, and stoned to death. Power has triumphed; and the infamous Jezebel, exulting in the success of her nefarious scheme, hastens to Ahab with the news, exclaiming, as she enters the royal presence, " Arise, take pos- session of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give thee for money; for Naboth is not alive, but is dead." Their chariot is called, their guards are sum- moned, and, in all the pride and pomp of their high place, they go down on the instant "to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it." But scarcely have they seized the prey when the tremendous discovery is made that He who is higher than the highest has taken up Naboth's cause, and that it is with Him they have now to deal. As they enter the vineyard they are confronted by Elijah the Tishbite, who thus addresses Ahab in the name of the Lord — "Hast thou THE RETRIBUTIONS OF PROVIDENCE. 179 killed, and also taken possession? . . . Tims saitli the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Nahotli shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine. . . . And of Jezebel the Lord also spake, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezrcel" (1 Kings xxi.) Or, again, take the case of David in the matter of Uriah. The honour and life of that faithful servant of the kinj?, the kinjr himself most basely and cruelly betrays. First he robs him of his dearest earthly treasure, and then, to get him out of the way, secretly consigns him to certain death. How the heart swells to think of the trusty soldier, all unconscious of the wrong he has sustained, laying himself down to sleep at the door of the king's chamber — denying himself all self-indulgence — refusing even to cross the threshold of his own loved home — till the peril which menaces his king and country shall have been removed. Returning to the battle-field, and gladly accepting the post of danger which is insidiously assigned him, he rushes into the very thickest of the fight, and being there purposely deserted and left to be overpowered by numbers, he falls amid heaps of slain. Again power has triumphed ; the deceived and dishon- oured husband has been removed, and David's criminal passion may now have its way. But verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth. He that is higher than the highest has had His omniscient eye upon the deed, and, by a terrible stroke of retri- bution, David is made to condemn himself. No sooner has he sent and fetched Bathsheba to his house, than Nathan the pro- phet enters and addresses him thus : " There were two meu in one city; the one rich, and the other poor. The rich man liad exceeding many flocks and herds: but the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought aud nourished up : and it grew up together with him, and with his children ; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and ho spared to take of his own herd, to dress for the wayfariug man that was come 180 THOUGHTS AND COUNSELS OF T^^ISDOM. unto him; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him. And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die ; and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity." Oh! the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of the human heart. He condemns, on the instant, the imaginary crime; and yet, though weeks have passed, he continues utterly blind to his own real and flagrant wickedness. But Nathan said unto David, "Thou art the man. . . . "Wherefore hast thou des^iised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon." And mark the fearful consequence — as he had sowed, so must he also reap. "Now, therefore," continued the prophet, "the sword shall never depart from thine house. . . . Thus saith the Lord, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour. . . . For thou didst it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun " (2 Sam. xi. xii.) Who that has traced the subsequent career of David ; who that* remembers the foul incestuous deeds of his own children, and how he was driven for a season by Absalom his son, at the point of the sword, from his city and his throne — how his sins were thus made to find him out, and his iniquities to correct him, by events that brought shame and sorrow upon his gray hairs; — who that remembers these things can fail to feel how truly and how terribly Uriah was avenged ! Well, there- fore, might Solomon say, " If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment in a province, marvel not at the matter : for He that is higher than the highest re- gardeth; and there be higher than they." The mightiest of earthly tyrants are as nothing and vanity in the presence of Omnipotence. They may seem to prosper in their way, and to THE RETRIBUTIONS OF PROVIDENCE. 181 Tje bringing, with impunity, their wicked devices to pass. Babylon may for centuries be drunken with tlie blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. But there is a cry ceaselessly issuing from beneath the altar — '• O Lord, how long dost thou not avenge our blood," — and that cry is enter- ing into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. And at length, when the cup of iniquity is filled, He shall come forth out of His place to execute His work. His strange work. Then shall be fulfilled these awfully significant words — " Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to all her works : in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her : for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourn- ing, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her" (Rev. xviii. G-S.) Nor is it merely in the case of princes and gi'eat men, and on the theatre of public life, that the Most High asserts His righteous supremacy, and vindicates the cause of the poor and needy when they sufier wrong. There is no relation of human society in which injustice and o^Dpression can be committed without bring- ing down the divine displeasure. The parent who is cruel to his child — the master who refuses to give to his servant that which is just and equal — the arbiter who gives a partial and one-sided award — the merchant who takes advantage of the ignorance or dependence of his customer, to extort from him more than is due — are all provoking the wrath of that All-see- ing and Infallible Judge, and their sin, if un repented, shall, in the end, meet with its merited condemnation. If, therefore, we would form a just estimate of the divine government, we must not limit our view to the scenes that may be passing be- fore us. We must take in a larger field of vision. We must watch the course and development of things. We must trace actions to their issues, and if these issues fail to appear in time. 182 THOUGHTS AND COUNSELS OF WISDO^I. we shall be sure to discover them in eternity, where God shall l)ring every work into judgment, and every secret thing, whether it be good or bad. Following this rule, we shall cease to be disquieted with the thought that there is no remedy for the wrongs Avhich men so often suffer at the hands of their fel- lows. While these wrongs bear mournful testimony to the fall of the human race, and to the deep depravity of the human heart, they are no proof that evil is destined to prevail, or that God is indifferent to sin. His providence, even now, unequivo- cally proclaims the fact that He is angry with the wicked every day; and His final and irrevocable judgment, at the consumma- tion of all things, shall leave no iniquity nnpunished but that which has been washed away in the blood of His beloved Son. Erom this solemn subject, which furnishes, when rightly under- stood, only an additional reason for giving heed to the injunction, " Fear thou God," Solomon proceeds to discourse on the vanity of earthly riches. This theme occupies, as might have been expected, a large place in the book before us. Worldly wealth being, as it is, the key that gives its possessor access to almost all kinds of earthly enjoyment, which enables him to gratify to the full the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is the favourite idol of worldly men — the idol at whose shrine they are often found to sacrifice ease and honour, nay, even health and life. No wonder, therefore, that in a book whose main design is to expose the vanity of an earthly portion, more than common pains should be taken to prove that riches is vanity. In entering upon this argument here, Solomon sets out with this very profound and pregnant remark — " Moreover, the profit of the earth is for all : the king liimself is served by the field." The earth is the common table of the human family, (ireat and small, rich and poor, young, and old, are sustained by the Ijouuty which it yields. It is large enough to accommodate them all; and if tliey rightly use it, it will be found sufficient for them all. Not one of them can dispense witli the provision it supplies. The mightiest monarch cannot do without it. If RICHES CANNOT SATISFY. 183 lie will not consent to be fed from off tins table, he cannot be fed at all. " The king himself is served by the field." His gold and jewels cannot satiate his hunger or quench his thirst. He is as dependent as the meanest of his subjects on the pro- duce of the soil. This is all obviously implied in Solomon's significant saying. But there is evidently this further implied in it, that men's natural wants, whatever may be their diversi- ties of rank, are very much the same. They need, and can con- sume, but a certain limited quantity of food ; and they can re- quire but a certain limited amount of clothing and shelter. Excess, even if they have ample means of indulging it, will do them no good. It will not make their bodies healthier or stronger. It will not prolong their lives. It will not increase their happiness. They may create, indeed, for themselves a mul- titude of artificial wants, and make themselves the slaves of their own effeminate habits and luxurious tastes. But their splendid way of living gives them no real advantage over the humblest of the sons of toil, who, having food and raiment, is therewith content. Having laid down, as the basis of his argument, this broad and unquestionable fact, the royal Preacher goes on to illustrate thus the vanity of earthly riches: — "He that loveth silver, shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abund- ance with increase: this is also vanity." There are various grounds on which this assertion may be confidently made. He who sets his heart upon money shall never be able to make a satisfying portion out of it; first, because there is usually so much uncertainty connected with it. He has it to-day, but some turn of fortune may deprive him of it to-morrow; and therefore, the more he loves it, the more does the fliintest fear of losing it disquiet his mind. But next, he shall not be satis- fied with it, because of its inherent incapacity to yield real and solid satisfaction to such a being as man. There are ten thou- sand causes of disappointment, anxiety, and sorrow, which wealth can do nothing whatever either to remove or mitigate. 184< ' THOUGHTS AND COUNSELS OF WISDOM. It cannot purchase exemption from the common calamities of life — from the anguish of bodily disease — from the affliction of domestic bereavements — from the attacks of envy and ingrati- tude — from the bitter grief of an ill-doing family — from the load of care which the very possession of great wealth never fails to impose. What could all the wealth of Nebuchadnezzar do for him when his reason fled, and he was driven from men and had his dwelling with the beasts of the field? What could the wealth of David do for him when his heart was broken by the death of Absalom his son 1 What could the wealth of Lot do for him when the confederate kings were dragging him away into captivity, or when Sodom and all that he possessed in it were sinking in the fiery abyss that swallowed it up? Riches, instead of raising men above the ordinary ills of life, does rather, by the envy it excites, and the temptations it creates, set up its o\vner as a broader mark for the devil, the flesh, and the world to shoot at. It multiplies both his griefs and his perils. But, further, and above all, he that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, because no amount of it can redeem his soul. It cannot pacify an accusing conscience — it cannot save him from going down into the dark valley of the shadow of death — it can- not deliver him from the wrath that cometh on the children of disobedience. But, while these are grounds amply sufficient to sustain the statement with the consideration of which we are now ensasfed, it is, I apprehend, a reason distinct from all these which Solo- mon, in making that statement, has more especially in view. He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, because the more he gets the more he would have. He that loveth abundance shall not be satisfied with increase, because his cove- tousness and his ambition grow faster than his wealth. This appears to be the real point and hinge of the argument as to the vanity of riches which is here employed. The love of money, like all other passions, grows by what it feeds on. Indulgence serves only to strengthen it, and to render it the more insatiable. RICHES CANNOT SATISFY. 185 What seemed a fortune before it was attained, dwindles into comparative poverty wlien it has been actually acquired. The height which looked so lofty when viewed from the plain, sinks down almost to the level of the plain itself, when, standing on its summit, the climber contrasts it with the far loftier eminences which have now come into view. He finds himself only as yet at the bottom of a vast mountain chain ; the higher he ascends, the more distinctly this fact appears; and just so it is with the love of money. The sum that bulked so large in his eye at the outset, shrinks by and bye into a trifle. Once it seemed wealth, now it appears the barest competence. It is measured every year by a new standard — the standard of a higher grade of society — of a more ambitious style of living — of new wants and inore expensive tastes. Things which at one time would have been accounted luxuries, have now become the merest neces- saries of life. That which at an earlier stage of his career would have been counted extravagance, has now almost the aspect of meanness. The point at which he is prepared to say that it is enouo:h, is like the horizon, to which the traveller, however far and however fast he journeys, never gets any nearer. The case now described is, to the full, as common in our day, as it could have been in the time of Solomon. It must be fiimiliar to every one who is at all acquainted with human nature and with human life ; it has been at the bottom of much of that reckless hasting to be rich that has become so common, and that has been recently the source of so much misery and crime ; and nothinor can be more illustrative than such a case of the vanitv o • of settino- our hearts on the riches of this world. o The 11th verse is evidently designed to explain and bring more fully out the truth thus taught in the 10th. It makes the vanity of a life spent in pursuit of wealth still more ap- parent, by showing that he who follows such a life is only heaping together what others are to consume; that his very wealth, the more it accumulates, involves him the more in those expences which drain it away. For, says Solomon, "when goods 12 ISG THOUGHTS AND COUNSELS OF WISDOM. increase, tliey are increased that eat them." The man who is ambitious of worldly wealth may have begun life in a cottage, and he may end it in a palace; but how little has he thereby added to his own personal portion of worldly things. His food, his clothing, his dwelling may be somewhat finer and more costly ; but that is nearly the whole amount of the difference. He has gathered around him a crowd of dependents. It is but a small part of his great income that the lord of the stately mansion needs, or actually uses for himself. His servants often fare more sumptuously than he. He is little more than the pay- master of the multitude of attendants with whom his wealth has surrounded him. For all the practical purposes of life, it may be more truly said, that he exists for them than that they exist for him. When we look on such an establishment, with all its grandeur and magnificence, and see how little more than nominal is the control which its possessor has of the outlay by which it is maintained, we may well ask, with Solomon, "What good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes 1 " Nor is this the only consideration that illustrates the vanity of a life devoted to the pursuit of wealth. The more success- ful in gaining wealth the man has been, the less often is he able to enjoy it. Great possessions beget great anxieties. The burden of their management is not easy to bear. The compli- cated relationships and responsibilities to which they give rise distract and oppress the mind. The luxurious habits which they cherish enervate the body; and the man whom the ignorant world envies is oftentimes in reality an object of the greatest pity. " Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." Tiie humblest cottager, if he knew all, would refuse to change places with the prince. "The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep." The labouring man's daily toil secures him at least his night's repose. He needs no artifi- DANGERS OF THE RICH AND THE GREAT. 1 S7 cial aids — no downy Led, no soothing music, no soporific mixture to allure tliat rest wliicli so often flies from the kingly couclj. However coarse or scanty may he his evening meal, and how- ever lowly the roof beneath which he dwells, he has but to lay him down when the work of the day is done, in order to sink at once into the arms of " Tired nature's kind restorer, gentle sleep." Solomon is not here intending to speak of the spiritual condition of these two classes of men, but only of their external circum- stances. His object is simply to show that riches is not so great a prize as men are apt to think it. He would have those in humbler station to understand that there is far less to envy in wealth than they may be sometimes tempted to suppose; and that the means of happiness, in so far as the things of this world have to do with it, are much more equally distributed than ap- pearances might seem to imply. It is possible enough, indeed, for the labouring man to be miserable, and for the rich man to be as happy as human life in this fallen world can ever be. But if it be so, the fact is owing, we may be well assured, to some other cause than to the mere difference in their outward estate. The secret of the difference, when the case is carefully examined, will be found, not without, but within. A good conscience towards God is the only solid foundation on which human hap- piness can rest. '' The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life " (Prov. xiv. 27). " Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure and trouble therewith" (Prov. xv. 16). It is a very solemn and awful saying of our Lord, that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. No words could more forcibly express than these, how many and how formidable are the spiritual dangers with which wealth surrounds its owner; or more impressively warn him of the need he has of the grace of God to keep his feet from falling into some one or otlier of the countless snares which wealth lays for the soul. To be 188 THOUGHTS AND COUNSELS OF WISDOM. humble iu the midst of circumstances so flattering to human pride — to be self-denied when everything is inviting and ministering to self-indulgence — to be siDiritually-minded when surrounded by a thousand seductive influences, all of a nature to corrupt and sensualize the heart — to walk by faith, and to live above the world, when so many earthly enjoyments are combining to draw down the man's thoughts, and feelings, and sympathies to the things which are beneath, is little short of a moral miracle. With man, indeed, it is impossible, but not with God. His grace can triumph over all these difficulties, and make even the man who has most of this world to be least . in love with it. Divine grace can teach him how to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness — how to turn that very gold which allures such multitudes along the broad way to destruction, into a means of helping him forward on the narrow way of life. This is undoubtedly true ; but this alters not the fact, that he is far safer, humanly speaking, whose lot in this world is that which Solomon so justly celebrates in these well-known words : " Give me neither poverty nor riches ; feed me with food convenient for me : lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain " (Prov. xxx. 8, 9). And now that we have prosecuted thus far Solomon's illus- tration of the vanity of riches, and have seen how truly pre- ferable, in many important respects, is that humbler sphere in which it is the necessary lot of the vast majority of men to live, let us return for a little to contemplate these di- versities of worldly station in the light of that great general truth with which Solomon began — " that the profit of the earth i-s for all, and that the king himself is sei-ved by the field." Were this truth habitually realized, what a happy influence it would exercise on all the interests of society, and on all the rela- tions of life ! If the profit of the earth be for all, then how suit- able is it that the rich should remember the poor — that those who THE PROFIT OF THE EARTH IS FOR ATJ.. ISO liave abundance sliould be ready to give to liim that ncedcth. No man livetli to himself. The wealtli of the rich man was not given to him that he might clothe himself in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day, and meanwhile leave the poor Lazarus to pine and perish in unpitied wretchedness at his door. The profit of the earth is for all. Lazarus must have a share as well as he. If disease, or old age, or helpless childhood, or some natural calamity, have consigned certain of those around him to poverty and want, it is his duty and his privilege to be God's almoner in relieving their necessities. Nor let him look proudly down, from his more elevated station, on those who are toiling for their daily bread ; he himself feeds at the same table from which their humbler wants are supplied ; he is as depen- dent as they are on the bounty of their common Father. The king himself has to beg, so to speak, every day at that Father's door ; he draws his subsistence from the same source ; and if a larger portion has been dealt out to him than to others, he has nothing, after all, which he has not received. But again, and on the other hand, if the profit of the earth be for all — if the Supreme Disposer of all things has made provi- sion in the earth for the support of all the creatures that inhabit it, and pre-eminently for all the members of the human family — it is evidently His design that none sliould be idle — that if any man will not work, neither should he eat — that all, in short, should betake themselves to this common field of labour, and in the sweat of their brow eat the bread which it yields. If one man, by superior industry, intelligence, ability, and worth, obtains more of the profit of the earth than others, they have no right to grudge his greater jn'osperity, or to disturb him in the possession of its fruits. Let them rather emulate his efforts and his virtues; and if it so please Him who distributeth to every man severally as He will, they also may receive a like reward. But especially let all ranks and conditions of men remember this, that God hath made of one blood all nations of men, to dwell on all the face of the earth. The earth is their 190 THOUGHTS AND COUNSELS OF WISDOM. common inheritance — their birth-place — their home — their ^rave. Let them, therefore, love as brethren; and let them remember this, that they have here no continuing city, and no sure place of abode — that the fashion of this world passeth away — that the earth, and the things that are therein, shall all be burned up; and let them, therefore, seek after a better and a more enduring substance. All are poor, in the truest sense of the word, who are destitute of an interest in Christ ; and they only are rich who have a treasure laid up in heaven. Let the pros- perous and selfish Avorldling, luxuriating in the midst of his wealth and grandeur, turn his eye for a moment to that scene so graphi- cally depicted in the parable of our Lord — And it came to pass that the rich man died and was buried; "and in hell he lifted up his eyes, heing in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom ; and he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame" (Luke xvi.) Alas! it could not be! Beyond the grave there is a great gulf fixed between the saved and the lost. It is here and now that heaven is to be won, if it is ever to be won at all. And blessed l)e God, by rich and poor alike, it may be won on the easiest possible terms — without money and with- out price. " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved !" SORE EVILS UNDER THE SUN. 191 CHAPTER IX. BROKEN CISTERNS. "There is a sore evil w/iie/i I have seen under the sun, namehj, riclies kept for the owners thereof to their hurt. But those riches perish by evil travail ; and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand. As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, wliich he may carry away in his hand. And tliis also is a sore evil, that in all points a.s he came, so shall he go : and what profit hath he that hath laboiu-ed for the wind ? All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and wratli witli his sickness. " Behold that which I have seen : it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him ; for it is his portion. Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take hi.s portion, and to rejoice in his labour ; this is the gift of God. For he shall not much rememljer the days of his life ; because God answereth hi>ii in the joy of his heart." — Ecclk.s. v. 13-iiO. "There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men : a man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that lie wanteth notliing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it : this is vanity, and it is an evil disease. If a man beget an hundred children, and live many yeai-s, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial ; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he : for he cometh in with vanity, and dei^arteth in darkness, and his name sliall be covered with darkness. Moreover, he hath not seen the sun, nor known aiu/ thinp : this hath more rest than the other. Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, yet hath he seen no good : do not all go to one place ? " All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled. For what hath the wise more than the foul ? what hatli the poor, that knoweth to walk before the living ? Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire : this is also vanity and vexation of spirit. "That which hath been is named already, and it is known that it ?.< man : neither may he contend with him that is mightier than he. Seeing there be many things that increase vanity, what is man the better? For who knoweth what is gaired by the envy and ingratitude of others, and by his own infirmities and sins. A FUNERAL BETTER THAN A FEAST. 227 There, — beyond death and tlie grave, — his happiness shall be without alloy. There, " God shall wipe away all tears from his eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain : for the former things are passed away. . . . He that overcometh," saith the Lord, "shall inherit all things ; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son" (Kev. xxi. 4-7). To the men of this world it might be an hard saying — that the day of death is better than the day of one's birth. But not at all deterred by this consideration, Solomon immedi- ately follows it up with another equally hard, that "It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting." The house of mourning is, in the estimation of worldly minds, the place of all others to be shunned ; and the reason which Solomon urges for resorting to it is precisely their reason for avoiding it altogether. Solomon says it is better to go to the house of mourning, because "that is the end of all men ;" because, in the humbling event which has made it a house of mourning, we see what is awaiting ourselves. But this is the very thing of which the lovers of this present world least wish to be reminded. To them death is an utterly distasteful theme. Their constant aim is to banish the thought of it from their minds. But is this a wise or safe course to pursue'? Is it not, on the contrary, a most grievous and criminal folly to be thus wilfully and obstinately shutting their eyes to an event from which they cannot by any possibility escape; and which is destined to fix their eternal and unalterable destiny in the world to come. " O that they were wise," said the Lord, addressing such a people, "that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end" (Deut. xxxii. 29). "Lord," said the Psalmist, recognizing this as the truest wisdom, " Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am" (Psalm xxxix. 4). To go to the house of mourning is a very impressive way of making us to know this. There we are brought into close and 228 HARD BUT TRUE SAYINGS. affecting contact with " the end of all men." Standing by the side of the dying or the dead, the living must be cold and callous indeed if they fail to lay it to heart. In this way the house of mourning has been often blessed to awaken and to deepen feelings and convictions which have proved, through grace, the beginning of life to the soul. In saying that it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, Solomon does not mean it to be understood that it is unlawful to go to the house of feasting — that it is necessarily wrong and injurious to resort to it in any case whatever. There is, as in this same book he reminds us, a time to laugh, as well as a time to weep — a time to dance, as well as a time to mourn. There are occasions in human life when it is fit and becoming for a man "to make merry and be glad" (Luke XV. 32). Our blessed Lord himself countenanced with His presence the marriage entertainment at Cana of Galilee; and deigned even to work a miracle to contribute to the means of a temperate and thankful festivity. Still it remains true, that it is not in the house of feasting the best and most salutary lessons for the guidance of human life are usually learned. Enjoyment rather than improvement is that which is there ordinarily sought and found. And as for those who make it their business to frequent such scenes — those with whom the house of feasting is the favourite and familiar resort — it may be very safely affirmed concerning them, that they are getting little there that will profit them either for this life or for that which is to come. They are getting, in all probability, a growing distaste for the sobriety, and seriousness, and self-denial which enter so deeply into the Christian life; and are acquiring, in the stead of these virtues, an increasing desire for the indulgence of those fleshly lusts that war against the soul. Still further to enforce the great truth which the 2d verse teaches, it is presented again in another form in the verse which follows. "Sorrow," it is there written, "is better than laughter : for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better." SORROW BETTER THAN LAUGHTER. 229 Such a sentiment may sound strangely in the ears of the gay and thoughtless; and they may be ready to set it down as the morose and cynical expression of a soured and discontented mind. It is the sentiment, notwithstanding, of the truest wisdom, and one w^hich it greatly concerns our highest interests to study well. In itself, indeed, sorrow is an evil. It is one of the fruits of sin ; and no sane mind would seek it for its own sake. But, like the bitter medicine of the physician, it is needful and salutary. Though "it seemeth not for the present joyous but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby" (Heb. xii. 11). "Before I was afflicted," says the Psalmist, recording his own experience of its efficacy, "I went astray; but now have I kept Thy word." And, accordingly, his unhesitating testimony upon the subject is this — "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes" (Psalm cxix. 67, 71). Sorrow sobers and subdues the mind — it rebukes ambition — it humbles pride — it exposes the vanity of this world — it robs wealth and pleasure of their dazzling and deceitful glare — it suggests solemn thoughts as to the shortness and insecurity of time, and flashes often, into even the most careless mind, vivid and impressive views of those dread realities that belong to the world to come. Well, therefore, might Solomon say, that "sorrow is better than laughter." He had himself tried, as he tells us in an earlier chaj)ter of this book, what laughter could do. He had said in his heart, "Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure." And what was the result? A brief experience constrained him to say " of laughter, It is mad : and of mirth. What doeth if?" (ii. 1,2.) Here, again, let it be dis- tinctly understood, that no condemnation is intended, in the words before us, of that occasional and innocent hilarity whicli seems almost indispensable to a healthful state of the mind. What Solomon means to affirm is simply this, that the moral tendency and influence of sorrow upon the human heart and 230 HARD BUT TRUE SAYINGS. mind are sucli as to make it better for us than the most exuberant mirth. It may be true that "he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast" (Pro v. xv, 15); but it is not less true that such a feast will do little for the wellbeing of the soul. Perpetual mirth is like perpetual sunshine — bright and pleasing to the eye, but hardening and exhausting to the soil. Sorrow is like the shower that softens the earth, and blesses the springing thereof. How often is it when the dark cloud of affliction blackens the heavens, and discharges from its bur- dened bosom its i^lenteous rain of tears, that the seeds of divine truth, that may have lain long unquickened in the heart, begin to break forth into life, and to take root downward, and bear fi'uit upward, to the praise of God's glorious grace ! For this reason, doubtless, it is that, as we find it written in the 4th verse, "The heart of the wise is in the house of mournins." The wise — those who have been tauo^ht of God — those who have been brought to set their affections, not on the things which are beneath, but on those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God — are ever ready to weep with them that weep. Not only do they esteem it a duty to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to give to the sufferers the solace of theii' sympathy, and the support of their counsels and prayers; but they regard the house of mourning as a school in which very profitable lessons may be learned by themselves. They go there, accordingly — not as many do, with reluctant steps — not to perform a painful and most unwelcome ceremony; but to enjoy a privilege — the double privilege of doing and of getting good. Their heart is there, even when they are not there themselves. Though absent unavoidably in body, they are present in spirit — present in the sense of pondering the instruction which the house of mourning conveys, and of bearing the mourners upon their hearts at a throne of grace. How different is it with fools ! Their heart is in the house of mirth. Sorrow is a spectre on which they cannot bear to look. To banish care — to escape A REBUKE BETTER THAN A SONG. 281 from the humbling contemplation of distress — to hasten out of the cold and gloomy shadow which death casts wherever it comes — and to bask and sport, like the insects of a day, in the sunshine of gaiety and pleasure — this is their aim. Do not those who pursue it deserve the name of fools'? If the life of man were no more than meat, and the body no more than raiment — if man had no higher destiny than the beasts that perish — it might be enough for the possessors of so ephemeral and object- less an existence to say, " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die !" Bat in what light does such a course appear when we view it as the choice of a creature made in the image of God — made for an immortality of communion with the great and glorious Author of his being ! Well, indeed, it were for the fools of whom Solomon speaks, if man did occupy the low place to which they seem so willing to be degraded. But their folly cannot alter the momentous fact, that man is destined to live for ever — to be the heir "of glory, honour, and immor- tality" in heaven — or "of shame and everlasting contempt" in the place of woe. Let them listen, then, ere it be too late, to the solemn warning of our Lord, " Woe unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep" (Luke vi. 25). Their giddy joys and thoughtless mirth they are buying at the price of a lost eternity ! Such remonstrances as these, Solomon well knew, would be utterly revolting and offensive to those for whom they were designed. But he would have them to bear in mind that " It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools." The rebuke of the wise will not be given unless it be needed; and when it is needed it is the greatest favour a man can bestow. It is an expression of the truest friendship, and one which it often requires no small amount of moral courage and real self-sacrifice to utter. Nor is there any better test of a man's character and spirit than the way in which such a rebuke is received. *' Kebuke a wise man," says Solomon elsewhere (Prov. ix. 8), " and he will love thee." Solo- 232 HAED BUT TRUE SAYINGS. mon's father was a wise man, and accordingly we liear liim say- ing, " Let the righteous smite me ; it shall be a kindness : and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head : for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities " (Psalm cxli. 5). Instead of rejoicing when, in their turn, the rebukers might come, by some painful providence, to be them- selves rebuked, he would then, on the contrary, recall the obli- gation under which their former faithfulness had laid him, and would be ready to succour them with his sympathy and his prayers. Not such is the return which the rebuke of the wise calls forth from the great majority of men. " He that rej)roveth a scorner getteth himself shame : and he that rebuketh a wicked man getteth himself a blot" (Prov. ix. 7). If it takes much wisdom to administer a rebuke — to choose the fitting time and tone^t takes hardly less, rightly to accept and use it. At the same time it is literally true to say, " He that hateth reproof is brutish" (Prov. xii. 1); and such a man will do well to lay to heart these solemn words — " He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that with- out remedy " (Prov. xxix. 1). It is more agreeable, no doubt, to the self-complacency of human nature, " to hear the song of fools " — to go where there will be nothing to wound our pride or to suggest unpleasant thou-^hts. The song of fools may evidently here be taken for the amusements and blandishments of the world; and what Solomon would have us to believe and be assured of is, that the rebuke of the wise is better than these. Pre-eminently better than these is the rebuke of the only- wise God, and yet how often is even His rebuke wholly disregarded ! He is rebuking sinners every day by his Word, and very often by his providence, too. By his Word he is continually condemning their folly and their sin, because they are careful and troubled about many things, and are wilfully and obstinately neglecting the one thing need- ful — because they are far more concerned at the thought of losing the world than of losing theii' souls. " How long," He A REBUKE BETTER THAN A SONG. 233 exclaims, ''ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners deliglit in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you." And because they still turn a deaf ear, alike to His earnest remonstrance and to His gracious promise, therefore has He subjoined these appal- ing words — " Because I have called, and ye refused ; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear Cometh ; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruc- tion Cometh as a whirlwind ; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me : for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord : they would none of my counsel : they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them" (Prov. i. 22-32). Carnal and unbelieving men may think it better to hear the song of fools • than to listen to this stern rebuke of Him who is the wisdom of God ; but there is a day coming that shall terribly reveal the madness of their choice. But while the Lord is thus continually rebuking sinners by His Word, he rebukes them also, often and very solemnly, by the dispensations of his providence. He rebukes them by those many undeserved mercies which they daily and yet unthank- fully receive ; and he rebukes them with the rod of those afflic- tions by which ever and anon they are chastened. And yet they continue deaf to the voice of the Divine Charmer, charm He never so wisely. What an afi'ecting proof does such con- duct afford of the deep depravity of man! Let God's own people beware of so slighting the visitations of the Almighty. When His hand is laid upon them in some heavy trial, let them 15 234) HARD BUT TRUE SAYINGS. betake themselves to the prayer of David — " And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee. Deliver me from all my transgressions : make me not the reproach of the foolish. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth ; because thou didst it. Kemove thy stroke away from me : I am consumed by the blow of thine hand. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth : surely every man is vanity. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry ; hold not thy peace at my tears : for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were" (Psalm xxxix. 7-12), To illustrate the emptiness and unprofitableness of that enjoyment in which the votaries of gaiety and pleasure seek their happiness, and which they think so greatly preferable to the humbling rebuke of the wise, and to the saddening scenes of the house of mourning, Solomon concludes the passage thus — " For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool : this also is vanity." The comparison is not more striking than it is just. The thorns make but a poor fire. The blaze is bright, but it lasts only for a little moment. Soon and suddenly it dies away, and the momentary flash renders only more dismal and disheartening the darkness by which it is suc- ceeded. What could more exactly describe the boisterous mirth of the fool ? Follow to his own home the man who has been the most successful in this poor art of setting the table in a roar — the man whose gift in this way makes him the idol of every company in which he mingles — and what a spectacle does the retirement of his own chamber often exhibit ! By what a painful reaction is the temporary excitement followed! His strength, his spirits, his time, his intellect, perhaps his money and his health too, have all been exhausted in an efibrt to tiu'n other men's thoughts and his own away from the great realities of life — from the solemn contemplation of its duties and its responsibilities, and from the contemplation of its end. There is no satisfaction in the review of such a scene. There is, on the contrary, an irresistible con- A GROUP OF SUCH SAYINGS. 235 viction that it is all liollow and false. The blaze is over and the darkness has now come, and the senseless and extravagant mirth has left nothing behind it but a painful feeling of self- humiliation and disgust. Truly, " this also is vanity." Let all, and more especially let the young understand and realize the truth which Solomon has here taught. It is at their age the fascinations of gaiety and pleasure exert their most fatal power, and the dissipation of mind which they then often produce be- comes, in cases too numerous, the habit of the whole after-life. Let them be exhorted to shun this snare. " If sinners entice thee, consent thou not" (Pro v. i. 10). Keep far away from them who say, " Come ye, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant" (Isa. Ivi. 12). Seek rather the company and the counsel of those that fear God and keep his command- ments. Covet and cultivate that good name — that favour with God and men — which is better than precious ointment. Turn, not away from the house of mourning, and refuse not to hear the rebuke of the wise. Above all, let the life you live in the flesh be a life of faith upon the Son of God; and, following these counsels of heavenly wisdom, your path will be that of the just that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Such a life of growing purity, and goodness, and usefulness on earth, wrought out in you by the grace and blessing of God's Holy Spirit, is the only fitting prelude and preparation for the society and the services of heaven. Solomon, as has been already explained, is now leading us on to his grand ultimate conclusion, that true happiness consists in fearing God and keeping His commandments. This, and this only, is wisdom. To have it is to have that good name which is better than precious ointment, and which will make the day of one's death better than the day of one's birth. But how is it to be acquired ? What are the circumstances, and what is the course of life, most favourable to its growth 1 Some things, in the way of answer to such inquiries as these, he has set before 236 HARD BUT TRUE SAYINGS. us in tlie group of verses we have just been considering. If we would learn this wisdom, we must be oftener in the house of mourninrj than in the house of feasting. Sorrow is a better teacher of it than mirth. The rebuke of the wise, however humbling to our pride, will do far more to instruct us in it than the flattering song of fools. Like all other really valuable acquisitions, this wisdom is difficult of attainment. Flesh and blood may grudge those sacrifices without which it can never be secured. But, nevertheless, it is well worth them all. And this being the case, how necessary is it to be put upon our guard against the many dangers to which it is exposed 1 If we fail to watch carefully over it, we may, after all, be robbed of it by the assault of some sudden and violent temptation, or allured into the surrender of it by some insidious and artful snare. It would seem to be with the design of stirring up to the exercise of this much-needed vigilance all those who are seeking after true wisdom, that the remaining verses at present before us were chiefly written. Nor is it unimportant to remark, that the fact now stated, sufficiently explains the abrupt transitions from one topic, to another which the passage exhibits. The statements and exhortations which it embraces may appear, at first view, unconnected and desultory ; but, in reality, they are all very closely related to the main subject, which is, to vindi- cate the excellence of heavenly wisdom, and to remind us of the many ways in which we may be spoiled of this inestimable treasure. Here are two of the ways in which this may be done — "Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a gift de- stroyeth the heart." On these two opposite sides, and by these two opposite methods of attack, may the fortress of wisdom be assailed and taken. Ill treatment, in the form of injustice or cruelty, may so exasperate the wise man's feelings, and so inflame his passions, as entirely to overbear his better judg- ment, and to hurry him into some course of proceeding so rash and violent as grievously to injure the reputation for wisdom GIFTS AS PERILOUS AS INJURIES. 237 he had previously enjoyed, and to furnish matter for bitter and humiliating self-reproach throughout the remainder of his life. We read of Moses, the meekest of men, that when " he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand" (Exod. ii. 11, 12). It was an act of the very kind at which the words of Solomon point. Burning under a sense of the wrongs and injuries which his countrymen endured, and, in this mood of mind, coming suddenly in contact with the particular outrage described, even the peaceful Moses became a homicide. Wisdom, thrown off its guard, was overpowered by the vehement desire of revenge. That momentary fit of passion cost him dear. Instead of gaining, it rather lost him the confidence even of his brethren. Instead of mitigating, it doubtless served rather to aggravate the rigours of their con- dition. It drove him out of Egypt, and had it not been for the grace and goodness of God, it might have deprived him for ever of the glorious distinction of being the deliverer of his people. Nor was this the only instance in which even a man so eminently wise as Moses suffered his better judgment to be thus overborne. When'the people " chode with him in Kadesh," and forgetful of all the great things he had both done and suffered for their sake, broke out into actual rebellion against him, thinking more of his own personal provocation than of the dishonour that was done to God, he gave utterance to words which brought down upon him the divine displeasure, and shut him out from the Promised Land. We cannot fail, indeed, to pity the wise man who is thus betrayed into madness j nor will his madness lessen our detestation of the conduct by which it was produced. We sympathize with him, even when we cannot justify him; and the very desperation to which he is driven serves only to present, in a more hateful light, the oppression which led him astray. But we must not, on this account, forget the lesson which it is Solomon's design to teach, and which it is so needful for us to learn. In speaking of that lesson, reference has hitherto been made 238 HARD BUT TRUE SAYINGS. to that extremer class of cases which the strong language before us naturally suggests. But there are other cases of a more common and familiar kind by which the same truth is taught. Ill usage, though coming very far short of anything to which the name of oppression could be fitly applied, too often tempts even wise and good men to speak so unadvisedly with their lips, or to commit such practical indiscretions in their conduct, as seriously to tarnish their Christian character, and greatly to weaken their Christian influence. To be misj>udged and opposed — to encounter what it is hard for human nature to bear — is only what every faithful servant of Christ must lay his account with in this present evil world. "Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus," says the apostle Paul, " shall suffer per- secution" (2 Tim. iii. 12). The Christian, therefore, has need of j)atience — has need to drink deeper every day into the spirit of Him whom no oppression could for a moment seduce from that magnanimity and benignity which never failed to return good for evil, and to repay a curse with a blessing. It is not, however, on the side of wounded self-love and irritated passions alone that the wise man may be betrayeti into folly. The snare that leads him astray may be of a precisely opposite kind. There is a fable which tells that the cloak which the tempest, with its utmost fury, was not able to strip from the traveller, — which it served, on the contrary, only to make him clasp more firmly and to wrap more closely around him, — the warm sunshine easily succeeded in inducing him to throw aside. And so it has often proved, that the integrity which no amount of injustice and cruelty could shake, has yielded to the fascinations of flattery and favour. Hence the need of cautioning even the wise man, that "a gift destroyeth the heart." A gift here is evidently synonymous with a bribe. " And thou shalt take no gift," said the Lord, in giving His statutes and His judgments to ancient Israel, "for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the judgments of the righteous" (Exod. xxiii. 8). To the same purpose it is written CORRUPTING FORCE OF BRIBES. 230 in tlie book of Proverbs, " He tliat receivetli gifts overthroweth judgment. A man that flattereth liis neighbours spreadeth a net for his feet" (xxix. 4, 5). It was the saying of a great Roman commander, that no fortress was impregnable up to whose gates a beast of burden could carry a sack of gold. It was a stinging satire upon human nature; but history, both ancient and modern, has lent, there is cause to fear, only too much countenance to its truth. Even when the gift is pre- sented in a much less gross and palpable form than that of a money bribe, its power to corrupt the mind and to bias its decisions is often painfully great. How often, in the history of the Christian church, have courtly honours and flatteries ensnared into courses of the most grievous defection, men who at one time had stood prominent among the champions of truth and duty! In the memorable history of the church of oui* native land instances not a few may be found in which, under the seductive arts to which I have just alluded, the glorious change in the career of Paul was literally reversed — in which men became persecutors of the faith which once they had preached — bitter enemies of the very cause to which they had originally and solemnly devoted their lives. So true is it that a gift destroyeth the heart. The man who permits himself, for any worldly consideration, to tamper with the dictates of con- science and the claims of Christ, is taking the most effectual means to deprave his own mind, to blind and to blunt his moral sense, to destroy all that is noble, manly, and independent in his character and spirit, and to degrade himself to the low level of a time-serving tool of the world. In the exposition now given of this verse I have followed the sense of our English translation. Erom that translation, how- ever, some commentators on the passage have thought fit to depart; not because the original does not fairly enough bear out that translation, but because the construction thus put on Solomon's words does not seem to them to comport with Solomon's design in using them. Their assumption is, that 240 HARD BUT TRUE SAYINGS. Solomon's design here is to sound the praises of wisdom; and they have, accordingly, endeavoured to make the verse read thus — " Surely oppression gives lustre to a wise man, while the gifts of fortune corrupt the heart." And true, no doubt, it is, that the very darkness and terribleness of a wise man's adversities serve sometimes to make his virtues shine out with a clearer and more impressive light ; and true it also is, that great worldly prosperity is too often fatal to the growth of piety and spiritu- ality of mind. But it is a fundamental objection to this view of the verse, that it cannot be reached without a somewhat violent straining of the original. It bends the words to a precon- ceived sense, instead of making that preconceived sense bend to the words. But, furthermore, the sense which our English Bible gives is in the most perfect keeping with the general scope of the passage to which the verse belongs. Solomon had shown in the foregoing context how wisdom — true, spiritual, heavenly ■wisdom — is best promoted. He is showing here how it is most endangered. In doing this he brings before us two different and opposite ways in which it is often fatally assailed. There is a natural and beautiful antithesis between oppression and a gift. The one drives the wise man out of the right path ; the other allures him away from it. And this leading idea, brought out in the 7th verse, may without difficulty be traced in several of the verses that follow — a circumstance which obviously tends very strongly to confirm the interpretation on which we have proceeded, as really conveying the true and intended meaning of Solomon's words. "Better," he goes on to say, "is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit than the proud in spirit." Even as a general proi)Osition, the first half of this saying may easily be made good. The end of a thing is better than the beginning of a thing, because not until it has reached the end can we rightly apprehend or fully estimate its destined scope and issue. A thing in the outset may look very dark and disastrous, which turns out, in the long run, to be full of benefit THE END BETTER THAN THE BEGINNING. 241 and blessing. The beginning of Joseph's captivity, when his brethren sold him to the Ishmaelites, seemed to be an over- whelming calamity; but in the end it appeared in a totally different light. Time proved that what his envious brethren meant for evil, God meant for good : they sent him to Egypt that he might live and die in unknown and hopeless obscurity ; but God was sending him thither to exalt him to honour, and to save even the lives of those who hated him, with a great deliverance. There is no child of God whose life may not furnish many illustrations of the same truth. Events of which, in their first aspect, he would have been tempted to say, "All these things are against me," he at length discovers to have been, of all others, the most conducive to his highest welfare. And the reverse of this statement is equally import- ant and equally true. Occurrences which, at the moment they took place, seemed full of the promise of good, are seen after- wards to be pregnant with evil. But while it thus evidently requires little effort to vindicate the soundness of the maxim which the words in question express, it is only when we come to connect it with the statements of the preceding verse that we recognize its relevancy to the particular discourse into which Solomon has introduced it. If the wise man had waited to see the end of those oppressions by which he suffered himself to be so greatly moved, he would have learned to regard them with greater calmness; and would have been far less in danger of losing his usual equanimity, and of being driven into those intemperate acts or expressions into which the madness of the hour betrayed him. And hence it follows, as an observation equally natural and just, that "The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit." Had the wise man been less proud and more patient, he would, in all probability, have escaped the loss and injury to his good name, as well as to his own peace of mind, which his temporary excitement and exasperation involved. A proud spirit takes fire at once, and provocation hurries it into many 242 HARD BUT TRUE SAYINGS. a rasli utterance and foolish deed. A patient spirit comes in aid of the decisions which wisdom is disposed to pronounce. It takes time to reflect, instead of giving way to the first head- long impulse. Pride lends fuel to feed the flame of passion and violence. Patience keeps down the fire, and quells the tumult ; and thus secures for wisdom the leisure and the calmness which, in such circumstances, it so especially needs, in order to judge righteous judgment. The man, therefore — and this is the lesson Solomon has it here in view to teach — who desires to possess and to retain true wisdom, must be at pains to cultivate patience and to di.scom'age pride. The same lesson is still further enforced in the 9 th verse, in which Solomon subjoins this appropriate exhortation — "Be not hasty in thy spii'it to be angry : for auger resteth in the bosom of fools." If anger be sometimes needful, it is always perilous. The occasion may arise when even the wise man, the true child of God, does " well to be angry;" but certain it is that he can never be angry without being much tempted to sin. The state of mind which that term describes ought to be watched with peculiar vigilance, and especially by those who know it to be a state of mind to which they are prone to give way. " He that is soon angry," says Solomon elsewhere, "dealeth foolishly" (Prov. xiv. 17.) The man that is " hasty in his spirit " is hurried, by every breath that rufiles his irritable temper, into some rash saying or unbecoming deed. Nothing more completely blinds a man to consequences than the passion of anger. How often has it broken in a moment the friendships of a life, and made its unhappy vic- tim the perpetrator of deeds that have involved him in lasting shame and ruin! Considering how fierce and ungovernable is the tempest which it raises in the human breast, it was with good reason Solomon declared in the book of Proverbs, that " he who is slow to anger is better than the miglity ; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city" (Prov. xvi. 32). It is one of the gracious and encouraging testimonies which Scripture has given us concerning God, tliat " He is slow to anger " (Neh. ix. THE FOLLY OF ANGER. 243 17), and tliat "neither will lie keep his anger for ever" (Psalm ciii. 9); that "His anger endureth but for a moment" (Psalm XXX. 5). And yet what infinitely greater cause has God for being angry, and for retaining his anger against us, than we can ever have in the case even of our mcst-offending fellovvmen ! Did His wrath burn and break forth against the sinner as sud- denly and vehemently as does the sinner's wrath against his offending brother, there is not a day or an hour in which the sinner might not be consumed. If the wise man, under the pressure of persistent wrong and injury, be at length roused to anger, he will not nurse his wrath — he will not foster and cherish so jDerilous a frame of mind. Anger will not be suffered to rest in him. It "resteth only in the bosom of fools." Assuredly he is a fool in the most emphatic sense of the word who harbours such a guest. He is taking the most effectual means to destroy his own happiness and peace. N'o man can suffer half so much from this baneful passion as the man who indulges it. It eats like a corrosive acid into his own spirit, and fills it with bitterness (Eph. iv. 2G). Those, therefore, who, by the force of some sudden and sore temptation — or who, under the influence of circumstances that may have seemed to justify such a state of feeling, have at any time been provoked to auger, will do well to beware of con- tinuing to cherish it. Their safety consists in speedily dis- missing it. For let it only be fanned into a flame by brooding over the occasion of it, and ere long it may snap, like threads of tow in the fire, all those restraints which reason, and con- science, and Christian principle would otherwise have imposed upon its violence; and may hurry its victims headlong into some excess or outrage such as shall bring down upon them the malediction that fell upon Simeon and Levi of old — " Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and theii- wrath, for it was cruel" (Gen. xlix. 7). Hence the need of pondering that beautiful exhortation of the apostle Paul, "Let not the sun go down upon thy wrath" (Eph. iv. 26). The departing day reminds us of de- 24)4! HARD BUT TRUE SAYINGS. parting life, and of the coming night when no man can work — when there will remain only the dread account we have to give of the deeds done in the body. If the closing day naturally suggests to the Christian such thoughts as these, and calls him, under a sense of tlie manifold offences he has committed against God, to seek anew for the forgiveness he needs through the blood of the Lamb, how can he dare to ask or to expect that God will cease to be angry with him, if he himself be, at the same moment, carrying to his couch an unforgiving spirit 1 To suffer anger thus to rest in our bosom is literally, as the language of the apostle, in the passage already alluded to, plainly intimates, " to give place to the devil," It is to open a door and smooth a way for his entrance into our souls; it is virtually to surrender ourselves into his hands. Anger is near of kin to hatred. He who cherishes the one will soon be found indulging the other; and Scripture tells us that " he who hateth his brother is a murderer" (1 John iii. 15); he is animated, that is to say, with the spirit of a destroyer — the very spirit of him of whom this is the terri])le mark, that he was a murderer from the beojinninsr. The connection is not obvious between the 10 th verse and those which immediately precede it. The link, however, that joins it to the context probably lies here. Solomon had spoken of oppression as making a wise man mad; and, having respect to the provocation such a state of things implies, and to the consequent danger of losing the command of one's own mind amid its harassing trials, he proceeded to commend that patience which waits for the issue of things, and to condemn that hasty and resentful spirit that kindles at a touch, and flames out on the instant in rash words and deeds. Now, in a time of such oppression, one of the rash conclusions at which an impatient mind might very readily be tempted to arrive would be this — that his lot had fallen on peculiarly evil times. Solomon accordingly anticipates such an occurrence, and addresses the supposed murmurer thus — " Say not thou. What is the cause that the former days were better than these 1 for thou dost not AN UNWISE QUESTION. 245 inquire wisely concerning tliis." The tendency here pointed at — to over-estimate the past and to undervalue the present — is one that is very common, and most especially, perhaps, among good men. They are painfully affected by the evils which they see around them — by the ignorance, immorality, and impiety which they know to prevail among large classes of the existing gener- ation — and by the little amount which they can discover of self- sacrificing zeal and holy devotedness even among the people of God. On the other hand, they dwell with a fond enthusiasm on the traditions which have been handed down of the godliness of other times. In our own country, for example, the Willisons and Bostons, the Bruces and Rutherfords, the Wisharts and Hamiltons, of our earlier history, shed a lustre on the periods to which they respective!}' belonged, in comparison with which the religious life of the present day is made to appear feeble and cold. And truly, when the question is asked, "What is the cause that the former days were better than these?" it is not always wisely that this question is considered. There is a previous inquiry that is very often overlooked, and that is, — Whether what we assume to be a fact be actually true? Are we sure that the former days really were " better than these 1 " True, indeed, the former days did produce noble specimens of faith and goodness — men whose names must be held in ever- lasting remembrance. Moses and Daniel, Paul and John — where now are such men to be found? But be it so that we look around us in vain to find graces and gifts that will match with theirs, it does not follow, by any means, that the days in which they lived were better than ours. When we recall the fact to mind that Moses was the contemporary of that stiff- necked and rebellious generation whose carcasses fell in the wilderness — that Daniel's brio^ht name shone amid the darkness of an age whose aggravated iniquities brought on the heavy judgment of the Babylonish captivity — that Paul and John belonged to a time when the nations were but beginning to emersje from universal heathenism — when men of God had trial 24)6 HARD BUT TRUE SAYINGS. of their faith in cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, in bonds and imprisonments — when they were stoned, were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword — and when even the churches of Christ were full of such errors and corruptions as we read of in the epistles to the Corinthians, or in those to the seven churches of Asia — When we recall to mind facts like tliese, the subject begins to j^resent itself in a totally dif- ferent point of view; and instead of envying the former days, we are rather moved to give God thanks and praise that those days were not our own, and that we have fallen on far other and better times. This, then, is one way in which men often fail to inquire wisely as to the superiority of other and earlier periods of the world's and the church's history. They found their inquiry on an entire mistake. As regards even the favoured land of our birth, whose religious history has so many epochs and incidents on which we love to dwell — and to some of which we are so ready to assign the character of Scottish piety's golden age — there cannot, after all, be any reasonable doubt in the minds of those who are competent to form an opinion on the subject, that with all its defects — and they are many and great — the present day will bear a most advantageous comparison with any that has ever preceded it. Looking back over those remoter periods is like casting one's eye over a mountain landscape about the time of the going down of the sun. We are fascinated with the glory of that radiance that gilds the summits of the everlasting hills, and forget the darkness that covers the vales. The few names that towered aloft, bright with the hues of heaven, above the common mass of men, atti-act our eye; and while we fondly gaze upon the few, we all but forget the many. While we venerate the memory, and strive to catch the spirit and to emulate the deeds of tlie saints of old, let us not be blind to the fact, that their days were not better than ours. They knew much of that oppression which maketh a wise man mad, while we sit under our vine and fig tree in safety and peace, none making us afraid. AN UNWISE QUESTION. 247 We enjoy means and opportunities for the diffusion ot the gospel, at home and abroad, such as to them were in great measure un- known. Attempts to convert the heathen had then been all but abandoned. Now they constitute one of the most characteristic and grandest features of the age. And though it be, indeed, mournfully true, that every form of evil, and every class and combination of Antichristian influence are actively at work — imbued with fresh life and energy, and busy everywhere, — blessed be God it is also true that the servants of the Most High, the friends and followers of Him who is the Truth, have also been "holpen with a little help;" and are coming forth, with something of the church's first love and zeal, to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. But, again, men often fail to inquire wisely as to the differ- ence between the present and former days, by not sufficiently con- sidering God's hand and purpose in the state of things of which they are disposed to complain. In a time of actual oppression, such as Solomon seems to have had more especially in his eye, this source of misapprehension might naturally be expected to be extensively prevalent. When persecution, for example, broke out upon the infant church at Jerusalem, in connection with the martyrdom of Stephen, and when Saul of Tarsus and the myrmidons of the Jewish Sanhedrim were haling men and women to prison, the little flock of disciples might be tempted to regard the event as an unmitigated evil, fraught with nothing but ruin, and to sigh for the period of tranquillity by which it had been preceded. But when they had subsequently learned to recognize the workinsc of that overrulinsj hand which made the dispersion of the apostles and evangelists the means of hastening the spread of the gospel — ^how, in short, the pei*se- cution that was meant to extinguish that hallowed fire was, in fact, only spreading it abroad, and kindling the world into that blaze of heavenly truth, in which both Judaism and heathenism shall be finally consumed, and by which the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall be made to enlighten every land— when a-iS HARD BUT TRUE SAYINGS. they liad learned to understand this, their sorrow and despon- dency would be turned into hope and joy. IMiijht we not find an illustration of the same truth in much more recent times? In the sj^ring of 1843, when a long and agitating controversy in the Scottish church was on the point of reachinjr its startling^ climax in the dismemberment of that ancient and honoured institution; — when the minds of many were failing them for fear, and for looking on those things that were coming upon the land, and more immediately on their own families and on themselves; — when it seemed as if those terribly significant words of the Lord Jesus were receiving a new fulfil- ment, ''Think ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division;" — and when, as of old, there were often five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three; the father against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother ; — in those eventful and anxious days, when an earthquake was shaking the whole ecclesiastical framework of our country, and threatening, by the confusion and disorder it was likely to create, to serve no interest but that of the common enemy, what lamentation there was over that trying and painful season, and what wistful looking back to the peaceful and prosperous times that seemed to have passed for ever away ! To those who were then, in efiect, asking, "What is the cause that the former days were better than these?" how justly might it have been replied, '-'Thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this." They were overlooking the hand and purpose of God, and forgetting His plan and His power to bring light out of darkness and good out of evil, and to make even the wrath of man to praise Him ! Better, truly, is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof The day that dawned in so lowering a sky has broken out into a glorious sun- shine. The thunder and the lightnings that rent the firmament have passed away, and the heavens are calm, and the atmo- sphere is fresh and clear, and the earth, made soft with the stormy A MODERN INSTANCE, 24)9 shower, is yielding a larger spiritual increase than before. A noble and enduring testimony has been lifted up for conscience and for Christian truth. The world has been taught, by a new and impressive example, that there is a reality in religious belief; that faith in God and His Christ is not an empty name. The obligation to honour God with our substance — the grace, in other words, of Christian liberality — has been developed and strengthened to a degree which, as compared with former times, seems altogether marvellous ; while an impulse has, at the same time, been given throughout many churches and many lands to every work of faith and labour of love. In a word, that which frowned upon us only a few years ago as a formidable calamity, has ushered in a time of reviving and refreshing from the presence of the Lord, and has produced results which constrain even the most thoughtless, with mingled wonder and gratitude, to exclaim — What hath God wrought ? And what, then, is the sum of these things? Is it not this — Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is? He that believeth shall not make haste. The most cruel oppression shall not unduly discompose his mind. He will not fear them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. He has learned how good it is that a man should both hope, and quietly wait, for the salvation of God. "Therefore will not we fear though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea" (Psalm xlvi. 2). 16 250 MORE ABOUT WISDOM. CHAPTER XL PRAISES AND FRUITS OF WISDOM. "Wisdom is good with an inheritance ; and by it the)'e is profit to them that see the 8xm. For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence : but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it. " Consider the work of God : for who can make that straight which he hath made crooked ? In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider : God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him. " All things have I seen in the day« of my vanity : there is a just man that i^risheth in hia righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wicked- ness. Be not righteous over-much ; neither make thyself over- wise : why shouldest thou destroy thyself ? Be not over-much wicked, neither be thou foolish : why shouldest thou die before thy time litis good that thou shouldest take hold of tliis ; yea, also from this withdraw not thine hand : for he that feareth God shall come forth of them aU. " Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men which are in the city. For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not. " Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken ; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee : for oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that tliou thyself likewise hast cursed others. " All this have I proved by wisdom : I said, I will be wise ; but it was far from me. That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out ? " I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of tliiiif/ii, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness : and I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands a$ bands : whoso pleasetli God shall escape from her ; but the sinner shall be taken by her. Behold, this have I found (saith the Preacher), covMing one by one, to find out the account ; which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not : one man among a thousand have I found ; but a woman among all those have I not found. Lo, this only have 1 found, that God hath made man upright ; but they have sought out many inventions." — Eccles. VII. 11-29. THE statement in praise of wisdom which Solomon makes in the outset of the above passage appears, at first view, some- what equivocal. To say that " wisdom is good with an inheritance," might seem to imply that in itself, and alone, it is of no great value ; and this is, in point of fact, a very common and popular WISDOM AND WEALTH COMPARED. 251 opinion. Wisdom, if it be associated with wealth, has a vener- able name ; but, if wedded to poverty, the world is seldom dis- posed to pay it any great homage. In the vocabulary, indeed, of a very large class of men, wealth and wisdom mean pretty nearly the same thing. The wise man who knows everything but the art of making money they regard as a fool; while the millionaire who, with a lamentable deficiency of higher gifts, has contrived to amass a fortune, receives all the deference and consideration due to the man who is pre-eminently wise. It can need no argument to prove that Solomon could never mean to lend any countenance to so gross a method of estimat- ing the worth of things. True it is that wisdom when com- bined with wealth may justly be said to acquire additional weight and force, in so far as wealth puts it in the wise man's power to exert a larger and more benefi.cial influence upon society. Not only does it predispose many to listen with greater respect to his counsels, but it enables him to take the lead in a multitude of enterprises by which his piety and phil- anthropy may be brought, most advantageously, to bear on the personal and social improvement of his fellowmen. Nor is it less true that even the amplest inheritance without wisdom is but a poor possession ; without wisdom it will, in all probability, be soon squandered and lost, or so used as to bring little credit or comfort to its owner, and to be of no real service to those around him. But all this would be obviously beside the mark as re- gards the design of Solomon's discourse. His design is to com- mend wisdom ; but this would rather be to commend wealth. These considerations would naturally set any tlioughtfiil reader of the passage, in quest of an outlet from the difficulty which the words, as they stand, so plainly involve. Nor is it needfid to go far in order to find it. Our explanation of the perplexing word in the verse will be at once aided and vindicated by a reference to verse 1 6, chapter ii. That verse, in our English version, runs thus : " There is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever." Rendered literally, the Hebrew reads as fol- 252 MORE ABOUT WISDOM. lows : — " There is no remembrance for the wise with the fool for ever." But as in this case, the preposition 'with' evidently and necessarily means 'equally with/ or 'like as/ the trans- lators of our English Bible have correctly employed a cor- responding form of expression. The examples indeed are numerous in which the word in question is used in this way, of making a comparison of one thing with another. Now, it is this same word that occurs in this other verse at pre- sent under consideration ; and we have only to construe it here in the same way, in order to arrive at a meaning altogether satisfactory. Solomon is here speaking in praise of wisdom, and what he says of it is this : That it is good vjith — that is, equally with, or like as — an inheritance. He is not to be under- stood as asserting or allowing that it is no better than an inheritance. By and bye he will show it to be greatly better. But for the present he limits himself to the statement, that it is good or valuable even as an estate or inheritance is good or valuable. " Wisdom is good, like as an inheritance is good : and by it there is profit to them that see the sun ; " that is, by wisdom there is profit not to one class only, but to all living men. How does this appear 1 It appears in this way : that though it be quite true that an inheritance — a fortune, money, in short — confers some important advantages, so that one may say truly enough " Wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence," yet the unspeakable superiority of the one over the other is proved by this great and unquestionable fact, that while the benefits of money are material and temporal, those of wisdom are spiritual and eternal. In a word, "the excellency of know- ledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it." Taking then, Solomon's words in tlie opening verse of this passage, in the sense now explained, let us consider the grounds on which he rests the statement they contain. In doing so it can hardly be necessary to remark that the wisdom of which he designs to speak, is not mere intellectual knowledge, or human sagacity, or worldly prudence, but wisdom in the highest sense — the wisdom THE PROFIT OF WISDOM. 253 which consists in fearing God and keeping His commandments. By this wisdom tiiere is profit to them that see the sun ; profit, that is to say, by way of eminence — profit in such a sense and to such a degree as can by no other means be attained. The profit of an earthly inheritance is not only limited, uncertain, and transitory, but there is this drawback in addition, that only a few can hope to acquire it. Wisdom, on the other hand — the knowledge, the fear, and the favour of God — may become the possession of all. To this best inheritance " not many mighty, not many noble are called;" but God hath "chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He hath promised to them that love Him" (James ii. 5) . While they see the sun — so long as they are still in the land of the living and in the j^lace of hope — this treasure is within their reach, and may be had for the seeking ; " For if any of you lack wisdom," says an inspired apostle, " let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him" (James i. 5). Now, if any inquire wherein lies the superiority of wisdom over wealth — of the heavenly over the earthly treasure — the answer is ready, and it is complete. In giving that answer Solomon means no disparagement to a worldly inheritance. He freely allows that " money is a defence;" as he says elsewhere, " The rich man's wealth is his strong city" (Prov. X. 15). It keeps want from his door. It surrounds him with conveniences and comforts in which the poor can seldom share. It gives him an easy command of all those human re- sources by which health is preserved and restored. " The rich, moreover, hath many friends." His money is a defence against that neglect to which the poor man is so often exposed in this selfish world. As Solomon himself testifies in a later chapter of this book, " Money answereth all things." It is the master-key that unlocks every door in the great store-house of this world's possessions and pleasures. But will even those who make the most of this fact deny that wisdom too is a defence, and a defence of a far better and more perfect kind? Money may defend its 254 MORE ABOUT WISDOM. owner from a certain class of physical evils, but it can do nothing to shield him from those far more formidable moral evils, which bring ruin uj^on the immortal soul. It cannot protect him against the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. On the contrary, it lays him only the more open to their perilous assaults. And hence that terribly significant saying of our Lord : " How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God" (Matt. x. 23). But msdom — heavenly \visdom — arms him against all these foes, and teaches him, as its first great lesson, what he must do to be saved; and it disposes liim, at the same time, to choose that good part which shall not be taken away; and in so doing it enables him, humbly and calmly, to bid defiance to the devil, the flesh, and the world. In acquainting him with God, it gives him a peace which the world's greatest prosperity cannot confer, and of which its direst adversity cannot deprive him. Wisdom, therefore, is a defence for all the best and highest interests of man; and the excellency which dis- tinguishes it above any earthly inheritance is this, that it "giveth life to them that have it." In that beautiful and remarkable impersonation of wisdom which Solomon has set before us in chaj)ter viii. of the book of Proverbs, and which is so evident a shadowing forth of Him who is emphatically " the Wisdom of God," the sons of men are ad- dressed in such words as these : " Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies, and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it. . . . Now, therefore, hearken unto me, ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord. But he that sinneth airainst me wronffeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death" (v. 10, 11, 32-36). Is not this the utterance of the same voice which in after ases thus spake upon earth, in that ever- memorable intercessory WISDOM GIVETK LIFE. 255 prayer wliicli is recorded in chapter xvii. of the gospel of Jolm: "Father, the hour is come: glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee : as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent" (1-3). This saving knowledge — partially revealed in the days of Solomon, but now fully disclosed in the glorious gospel — is the only wis- dom that " giveth life to them that have it." For " this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life" (1 Jolm v. 11, 12). Money can do nothing to procure this inestimable blessing: and yet without it how worthless is the greatest earthly inheritance which any son of Adam can ever receive ! " What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ]" (Mark viii. 36, 37). Well, therefore, might Solomon say, as he does in the book of Proverbs (iv. 5-9, 13) : " Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the princijml thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee : she shall bring thee to honour when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver unto thee. . . . Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go: keep her; for she is thy life." It is substantially the same counsel as that which Paul gives to Timothy, when, in chapter iii. (14, 15) of his second epistle, he wrote to him in these words : *' But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; and that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus.' Having thus asserted and vindicated the infinite superiority 256 MORE ABOUT WISDOM. of heavenly wisdom to all earthly possessions, Solomon pro- ceeds to address certain practical and important counsels to all those who desire to follow its dictates: "Consider," says he, " the work of God." It is the folly and the sin of unspiritual men that, in observing the course of events, they make little or no account, of the hand and purpose of the supreme Euler. They have a quick eye to discern the second causes — the immediate ao-encies and instruments through 'which certain results are brought about j but what God may have to do with these results, or whether He have anything to do with them at all, is a thought with which they seldom trouble their minds. But Solomon would have us to understand, as the first lesson on this subject which divine wisdom teaches, that the Lord reigneth, that the hau's of our head are all numbered, and that " without Him not even a sparrow falleth to the ground." We are not in a posi- tion to judge aright of the things that are befalling us, or to be suitably affected by them, until we come to consider them as " the work of God." " He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest thou?" (Dan. iv. 35). Vain man, in his ignorance and presumption, may arraign the fitness of this or the other providential arrange- ment ; and in his impatient selfishness may fret and murmur at the personal loss or suffering it may have entailed upon him, or at the obstacles it may have placed in the way of the success of his own worldly schemes. Even the people of God may, and do often give way, in a measure, to the same unbecoming spirit ; and all from failing duly " to consider the work of God." To check and subdue such a spirit, Solomon, in the first place, reminds those who indulge it, that it is all to no purpose. In rebelling against the ordinations of providence they are only fighting with omnipotence — kicking against the pricks. They may and must, in j^ursuing such a course, injure themselves, but they cannot affect or alter the purpose of Him whose counsel shall stand, and who will do all his pleasure. WISDOM IN THE WORK OF GOD. 257 "Who can make that straight which He hath made crooked?" Solomon does not mean, in so saying, to teach or countenance the revolting doctrines of fatalism ; he does not mean that we are to regard ourselves as being in the iron grasp of a blind and remorseless power, that gives no heed to what we say, or think, or do; and in regard to which we have no resource but pas- sively to leave ourselves in its hands. The government of God, in so far as it concerns His moral, rational, and responsible creatures, is a government in harmony with their nature and condition. It is a government which appeals to their reason and to their conscience; which demands their submission on the ground, not more of its sovereign authority than of its absolute and unchangeable rectitude; and which, by its rewards and punishments, presents the strongest motives to cease from evil and to learn to do well. But, under this government, man is the subject and God is the Ruler. It is His will — the will of the only wise, just, and holy Jehovah, and not that of His ignorant, erring, and fallen creature — that is to decide what shall be. Let man, therefore, humbly and reverently acquiesce in what the Lord is pleased to ordain as to his earthly estate. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" God's ways, it is true, are not our ways, neither are His thoughts our thoughts; neither doth He give account of His matters. His plan and purpose are often shrouded in mystery. Events are ever and anon taking place in regard to which His way is in the sea, and His path in , the great waters, and His footsteps are not known (Psalm Ixxvii. 19). The son, that was the stay and hope of a widowed mother, dies. The mother, on whom some little group of helpless children leaned for counsel and for care, is taken from the midst of them, and they are left alone. The youth full of promise, when his long and laborious training for some high and honourable walk of life has just been completed, is struck down at the very outset of his career, like some noble and richly -laden bark that founders in the very act of putting to sea. The man of matured wisdom and worth — 258 MORE ABOUT WISDOK tlie very prop and pillar of the church or community to which he belonged — falls before some fatal disease at the very moment when his services seemed to be most needed. Be it so. Our part is to say, with David, "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it " (Psalm xxxix. 9) j or with Job, "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (i. 21). It is not enough, however, that we accept what the Lord is thus pleased to send. We must study, and strive to learn and improve the lessons, which the dispensation, of whatever nature it be, is designed to teach. Afflictions are meant to exercise us in one way, and propitious events in another ; therefore, says Solomon, " In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider." It is not only natural, but suitable, that we should be glad when some dreaded calamity has been averted, or when some important benefit has been received. Giving expression to this law of our nature in the parable of the prodigal son, the father is made by our Saviour to say, in reply to the querulous com- plaint of the elder brother, "It was meet that we should make merry and be glad : for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found" (Luke xv. 32). The joy, it is true, which the day of prosperity should call forth, is not the boastful exultation of gratified pride, nor the heartless glee of successful selfishness. "I will punish," said the Lord, "the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. For he saith, by the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom ; for I am prudent." Such an irreverent forgetfulness of God, and vainglorious magnifying of the arm of flesh, is as if the " axe should boast itself against him that heweth therewith, or as if the saw should magnify itself against him that shaketh it; as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up ; or as if the staff should lift up itself as if it were no wood" (Isaiah x. 12-15). The first movement of the heart's joy in the day of prosperity should be DANGERS OF PROSPERITY. 259 an act of worship, in devout and grateful acknowledgment of Him from whom every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down. "It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises to thy name, O Most High : to shew forth thy loving-kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night. . . . For thou, Lord, hast made meglad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands" (Psalm xcii. 1, 2, 4). Alas! that prosperity, instead of thus drawing the soul neai-er to the great fountain of all blessedness, should, on the contrary, serve so often only to wed it more closely to the world! It is in this way that "the prosperity of fools shall destroy them" (Pro v. i. 32). As was exemplified in the case of Israel of old, "Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness : then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Kock of his salvation." Therefore the Lord said, "I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be" (Deut. xxxii. 15, &c). Solomon himself had painfully illustrated, in his o^vn personal history, this fatal tendency of outward prosperity to alienate the heart from God. The wisdom, and wealth, and power with which the Lord had so remarkably endowed him, be- came his snare. In that dark season of spiritual declension he tried to be joyful. He said in his heart. Go to ; I will prove thee \vith mirth. He withheld not his heart from any joy; from any joy, that is, but one. He had ceased to joy in God. And how empty and unsatisfying did his earthly joys prove ! Of the best of them he had nothing better than this to say, "It is vanity." When he, therefore, with all this experience, says, " In the day of prosperity be joyful," let us be well assured he does not mean us to repeat his own error ; but rather that, taking warning from that error, we should turn every blessing we receive, whether temporal or spiritual, into a fresh argument for stirring up our souls and all that is within us, to praise and magnify the great name of oiu* God. As much as joyfulness becomes the day of prosperity, so much 2 GO MORE ABOUT WISDOM. does sobriety and tliouglitfulness become a day of distress. "In the day of adversity consider." The exhortation is general. It condescends on no particulars; but it is, notwithstanding, singularly suggestive. Who can be at a loss, in the circum- stances j)ointed at, for materials of consideration? Our first duty is to "Hear the rod, and who hath appointed it;" to recognize the visitation as from the Lord. "Affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground " (Job v. 6). We consider it to very little purpose if we look no further, and no deeper, than to the outward means through which the calamity may have assailed us. And, further, while we trace it up to God, and, therefore, humble ourselves under His mighty hand, we must be at pains to learn for what end it has been sent. "Is there not a cause?" "He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men" (Lam. iii. 33). For their own pleasure merely, earthly fathers may chastise their children ; but there is neither caprice nor passion with our Father who is in heaven. When He chastens, it is not for His pleasure, but "for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness" (Heb. xii. 10). In the day of adversity, then, let us consider wherefore it is that the Lord has found it needful so to deal with us. In the affliction that has overtaken us, has He been breaking some idol that was getting too strong a hold, and too engrossing a place in our hearts'? Or has He been rending asunder some of those insidious ties that were binding us too closely to the world? Or has He been disciplining us for some ajDproaching work of sore sacrifice and self-denial which He has in store for us to do; and for the doing of which the present adversity is part of the fitting and needful prepara- tion? Or is it that we have been giving way to some secret sin, in which the Lord would thus have us to know that He has found us out, and that by this blow which he has struck at our fortune, or family, or health, He is, sternly and yet gra- ciously, bidding us "Go and sin no more, lest a worse thing befall us." If in the day of adversity we are at pains, humbly GODS WAY IS TERFECT. 2Gl and prayerfully, to consider such things as these, we shall not fail to find, that though "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous, nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby" (Heb. xii. 11). In this life God hath wisely intermingled sorrows and joys. Neither the one nor the other, alone and exclusively, is adapted to our present probationary state of being. It is by the temper- ing of the one with the other that a state of things is produced, the most favourable to the sanctification of the soul, and to the growth and development of the moral and spiritual nature of man. " God also hath set the one over against the other," says Solomon, " to the end that man should find nothing after Him." The latter part of this sentence is somewhat obscure. It seems doubtful whether the expression "after Him," should not rather have been rendered "against Him." Either way the meaning of the words appears to be substantially this — that God hath thus wisely meted out and proportioned prosperity and adversity in the lot of man, so as to manifest His own unerrinof wisdom, and to leave no room for any to complain. We may think, indeed, before we have seen the true tendency and final issue of things, that we could have found out a better way, — that if we had come after God, and been permitted to revise His plans, we could have corrected them, or at least have discovered some materials for bringing an accusation " against " Him. " For," as Zophar, the Naamathite, truly said, " vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt" (Job xi. 12). But God will be justified in His sayings, and will overcome when He is judged. He has so adjusted His providence to the wants and the welfare of the human race, that if we fail to profit by His dispensations towards us, the fault assuredly is not His but ours. Leaving this important subject, of the manner in which it becomes wisdom to deal with the work and the ways of God, Solomon turns, at the 15th verse, to one of those stumbling- blocks, in connection with divine providence, by which even the 262 MORE ABOUT WISDOM. wise man may be perplexed and discomposed. " All things," he observes, " have I seen in the days of my vanity; there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness." Solomon had been both an extensive and an accurate observer of human life. Even in the days of his vanity — the days when he was living without God in the world — " he gave his heart," as he had already told us in chapter i. of this book, " to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven." Amonsr the facts which had then arrested his notice, the one now specified had come under his view, and had evidently taken a powerful hold of his mind. And no doubt such facts are, and always must be, a source of endless and hopeless perplexity to the man who surveys them through any other medium than that of the Bible. Philosophy seeks in vain to account for such a phenomenon as a righteous man perisliing in his righteous- ness, and a wicked man prolonging his life in his wickedness. Philosophy can neither explain it nor amend it ; and this, too, in the days of his vanity, Solomon had been made to see ; for this was his own humbling confession — " That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered." However true such a conclusion might be, there was little comfort in it for the merely philosophical mind. And perhaps it was in those days of his vanity, when he had been speculating on such questions according to the wisdom of this world, that he had heard, from some of those to whom he pre- sented the difficulty, such maxims propounded as these : " Be not righteous over-much ; neither make thyself over-wise : why shouldest thou destroy thyself? Be not over-much wicked ; neither be thou foolish; why shouldest thou die before thy time?" We cannot suppose that these maxims are introduced here as expressing Solomon's own mind. They may have been the mind of Solomon in the days of his vanity — the mind of a sceptical philosophy, or of the cold and compromising and selfish morality of the world. But they certainly are not the MAXIMS OF THE WORLDS WISDOM. '2(j'S mind of Solomon as tlie inspired, teacher of the mind of God. The unexplained abruptness with which tliey are inter- jected into the passage leaves the reader somewhat at a loss as to their intended place and meaning in this general argu- ment ; and even commentators have differed considerably in the theories by which they have sought to expound them. The view at which we have already pointed, however, seems to be both the simplest and the most satisfactory. His reference to the days of his vanity — as the days in which he had been led to observe the painful cases described — reminds Solomon of the sort of reflections to which, in worldly and unspiritual minds, such cases were wont to give rise. In point of fact, it is very much in the same way that such minds reason to this hour. When " the righteous man is seen perishing in his righteousness" — bringing himself, that is, to loss and ruin, or, it may be, to the scaffold or the stake, by his unflinching adherence to the cause of conscience and of Christ, — worldly wise men account him a fool. They think him "righteous over-much" — too strict, too uncomplying, too scrupulous. On the other hand, they dis- approve no less of the opposite extreme. The man who runs riot in sin — who scorns all religion and defies all morality — they consider "over-much wicked." He loses caste in society; he wastes his fortune, he destroys his health; perhaps even ex- poses himself to the lash of the law, and brings his very life to a premature and disgraceful end. The wise men of this world condemn equally both of such classes of persons as these. They flatter themselves that they have found out the golden mean between these contrary forms of error. They stand up for modera- tion in all things. They consider it to be as foolish and dangerous to rise above the world's standard of right and wrong, as to fall below it. A* man's religious principles, according to their view, ought neither to be so high and unbending as to bring him into collision with the world's tastes and customs, nor so lax and heretical as to shock the received opinions and proprieties of respectable life. There is no attentive observer of society who 26-i MORE ABOUT WISDOM. can have failed to discover that a style of opinion such as has now been described is, and ahva^^s has been, common in the world. It is well and needful therefore that it should thus be held up by Solomon before us, not as a model to be imitated, but as a snare to be shunned. It is, at the best, a mean, cowardly, con- temptible compromise between truth and error, between duty and self-interest, between the service of God and the service of the devil. Men may flatter themselves with the notion that they can thus serve two masters, and be the friends of the world without being the enemies of God. But the thing cannot be. He that is not with Christ is against Him. He who loveth father or mother more than Christ, is not worthy of Christ. He that is ashamed, for any cause, of Christ and of his words, in this evil and adulterous generation, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed when He cometh in the glory of his Father and of the holy angels. This, substantially, is the dictate of that divine wisdom which Solomon has been celebrating, and commending to our accept- ance. And, therefore, from all such worldly reasonings as he had now briefly glanced at, he returns to the grand theme of his discourse, and, in the face of those reasonings, entreats us to cleave to the better part and the wiser choice. "It is good," says he, '-'that thou shouldest take hold of this : yea, also, from this withdraw not thine hand ; for he that feareth God shall come forth of them all." Strait, it is true, is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life. He who would be the disciple of wisdom, must lay his account with facing many dangers and suffering many trials. In this world, where evil abounds, and where so many influences are arrayed against true piety and godliness, he who would preserve his integrity, who would keep himself pure, who would maintain an unswerving allegiance to God, must make up his mind to endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. "In the world ye shall have tribulation," said our Saviour to THE END OF THE RIGHTEOUS IS PEACE. 265 his discqoles, "but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." He will be a very present help in trouble. As their days, so shall their strength be. He will not suffer them to be tempted above that they are able; but will, with the tempta- tion, make for them a way of escape, that they may be able to bear it. The trial of their faith may be painful ; but it is much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire; for the result through grace shall be unto praise, and honour, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. "Kest, therefore, in the Lord, and wait patiently for him: fret not tliyself because of him who prospereth in his way because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. . . . A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked shall be broken : but the Lord upholdeth the righteous. The Lord knoweth the days of the uj)right ; and their inheritance shall be for ever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time ; and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs : they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away. . . . The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord ; and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down : for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand. . . . The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord ; He is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them and deliver them : He shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in Him" (Psalm xxxvii.) It will be remembered that in dealing with the immediately preceding context, the 16th and 17th verses were regarded as setting forth, not Solomon's code of morality, but that of the wise men of this world. The cases he had described in tlie 15th verse — that of a just man perishing in his righteousness, and that of a wicked man prolonging his life in his wickedness — might seem at first view to cast some doubt upon the wisdom of following such a course of life as Solomon had been recom- 117 266 MORE ABOUT WISDOM. mending. If fearing God and keeping His commandments was to be the means of bringing the just man into trouble, and if the wicked man prospered by trampling all such considerations under his feet, did not this seem to imply that some standard more flexible and accommodating than the divine law would be the most conducive to human happiness ! Solomon had heard such opinions broached. In the days of his vanity he had, perhaps, himself been disposed to regard them with favour. To make a compromise between principle and policy — to be neither right- eous overmuch, nor overmuch wicked — to avoid the self-sacrifice of the one and the disgrace and damage of the other — is the true golden mean in the eyes of worldly prudence. It was so in Solomon's days, and it is so in ours. In reality, however, it is a shallow and short-sighted scheme; contemptible in itself, and miserable in its fruits. Solomon's inspired counsel accordingly is to have nothing to do with it. In the face of all its plausi- bilities and its promises, let those who value their own welfare, here and hereafter, rather take hold of heavenly wisdom — yea, from that divine guide let them not withdraw their hand. In following the wisdom of God, they may be often called on to deny themselves, and to take up their cross ; they may have to suffer for righteousness sake ; but it is the only safe course after all. There is such a thing as saving one's life, and thereby, in another and higher sense, losing it ; and there is such a thing as losing one's life, and in that other and higher sense finding it. Many and formidable as the trials and perils awaiting the dis- ciples of divine wisdom may be, " he that feareth God shall come forth of them all." This is substantially the view we have presented of the somewhat difficult passage to which reference has now been made. And it certainly well accords with that view, to find that " wisdom " is the very first word of the verse which im- mediately follows. It shows what was in the mind of Solomon when he said, in the 18th verse, " It is good that thou shouldest take hold of this ; yea, also from this withdraw not thine hand." THE POWER OF WISDOM. 267 Wisdom, lieaveuly wisdom, was the guide to whom he was there exhorting men to cleave. And to confirm them in that course, as unspeakably the safest and the best, he pronounces this further eulogy upon wisdom — that " it strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men which are in the city." Even in the lowest and most secular sense of the word, wisdom is far more powerful than brute force. " A wise man," as Solomon expresses it elsewhere, " scaletli the city of the mighty, and casteth down the strength of the confidence thereof" (Pro v. xxi. 22). It is due to this inherent and immense superiority of intelligence and forethought, over mere numbers or animal energy, that the few in all ages have controlled the many — that a handful of culti- vated and civilized men have triumphed over whole nations of barbarians — that some thousands of our own countrymen, have recently sufficed to restore, in India, the sovereignty of this king- dom over one hundred and fifty millions of the human race. It is wisdom, in the sense of knowledge and intellectual skill, that has subdued the material world, and made it tributary to the convenience and comfort of mankind ; that has turned the very elements of nature into man's most submissive servants; that has tamed and trained the very lightnings of heaven, so as to make them rend the rocks asunder at his bidding, or bear his messages with the speed of light to the ends of the earth. Solo- mon certainly was not the man to undervalue wisdom, even in this more ordinary and earthly aspect of the term. He knew, as well as any philosopher of modern times, that knowledge is power; but he had also discovered, what some of our modern savans have still to learn, that knowledge is not goodness, is not happiness; and that its possessor may be, after all, both very depraved and very miserable. It is not human science, there- fore, however great its achievements may be, that he intends to celebrate when he tells us that " wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men which are in the city." A wise man, that is, a God-fearing man, is, in this fixUen world, like a be- leaguered city. " Behold," said the Lord Jesus, reminding his 268 MORE ABOUT WISDOM. followers of this truth, " I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves " (Matt. x. 16). Their integrity is continually assailed and endangered by corruption within, and by an evil world without, and by their great adversary the devil, who goeth about seeking whom he may devour. "Ten mighty men," — chosen captains, leaders skilful and experienced in the whole art of war — would justly be regarded as adding greatly to the security of a besieged city. Their very presence would inspire confi- dence, and under their able direction even a comparatively feeble garrison might be able successfully to repel the foe. But more than these mighty men, with all their skill and energies combined, could do for such a city, can wisdom do to strengthen its possessor against the devil, the flesh, and the world. It was this wisdom that enabled the youthful Joseph to preserve his purity amid the seductions of Egypt, and to prefer a dungeon to sinning against God. It was this wisdom that strengthened Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, to face the burning fiery furnace, rather than renounce their allegiance to the one living and true God. It was this wisdom that sustained the Christian constancy of Paul, amid bonds, and stripes, and imprisonments, and death. It is this wisdom which nerves tlie believer, in the every-day walks of life, to deny himself, and to take up his cross and unflinchingly to follow Christ. The moment he ceases to take hold of this divine source of strength — the instant he withdraws- his hand from it — and, in the stead thereof, begins to lean to his own understanding, and to make flesh his arm, and to suffer his heart to depart from the Lord, he becomes " weak as other men," and falls an easy prey to the tempter's art. His great strength lies in that faith which brings omni- potence to his aid ; which insures to him the fulfilment of that promise — " My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness " (2 Cor. xii. 9). " The righteous shall hold on his way; and he that hatli clean hands shall be stronger and stronger" (Job xvii. 9). "Even the youths sliall fail and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall : but BE DEAF TO CENSORIOUS TONGUES. 2G9 they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint" (Isaiah xl. 30, 31). The word " for," at the beginning of the 20th verse, would appear to imply that the statement which the verse contains is connected, in the way of inference or illustration, with the pre- ceding context. It is difficult, however, to trace any connection of the kind. There is, on the other hand, a very obvious and imj)ortant connection between the statement of the 20th verse and the other statement which follows in the 21st and 22d. Taken together, they form a complete and natural series, and convey, to all who would be guided by true wisdom, a much- needed and most salutary piece of advice. Simply, therefore, changing "for" into "because," which the original allows, the passage we have now to consider will read thus — "' Because there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not ; also (or, for that reason), take no heed unto all words that are spoken ; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee : for oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others." Even wise and good men are often unduly fretted and disquieted by the harsh and uncharitable things that may be said of them in this censorious and envious world. They err in giving way to such angry or disappointed feelings. They forget that even the best of men have still many failings — that there is no perfection among our fallen race; and while this fact should remind them that they themselves are not infallible, and that they may really have given some cause for the accusa- tions of which they complain, it should also teach them not to form unreasonable expectations as to the conduct of others. Considering that there is so much selfishness, and malice, and ignorance, and thoughtlessness in human society, they should lay their account with being sometimes misunderstood and misrepresented. If they would save themselves from a great deal of needless annoyance, they will not be too keenly alive to 270 MORE ABOUT WISDOM. what is tliouglit or said about tliem by ill-natured minds or carping tongues; and least of all will tliey lay themselves out to discover what others may be whispering behind their backs concerning their merits and conduct. There is much point, as well as truth, in the flxmiliar saying — that eavesdroppers seldom hear good of themselves. They do not deserve to hear it. It is well that their craving curiosity and morbid vanity should be thus rebuked and humbled. The candid man — who reflects how often he himself has done less than justice to others — how frequently he has allowed himself to cherish hard thoughts or unkind feelings against his neighbour without sufficient cause — will be disposed to bear with similar offences when they return upon liis own head. The fact set forth in the 20th verse, and which we have now treated as the foundation or ground of the practical exhortation that follows, is one of a very solemn and humbling kind. It corresponds to that searching question which we meet with in the book of Proverbs (xx. 9), " Who can say, I have made my heart clean; I am pure from my sin?" And to that still more explicit declaration made in his 1st epistle (i. 8), by the ajDostle John, " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." It is an affecting thought that there is not even "a just man" upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not. The just man here is evidently the man approved of God. If even to him sin still cleaves, the conclusion is inevitable, that his accej^tance with God must rest on other merits than his own. It is not a partial and imperfect obedience that can satisfy the divine law; "For whosoever," says an in- spired apostle (James ii. 10), "shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." And hence the irresistible conclusion elsewhere laid down, that "by the deeds of the law there shall no flesli be justified in God's sight" (Rom. iii. 20). There is no other righteousness that can avail to justify the sinner but that of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is good, therefore, to take occasion from this 20th verse to set forth the ALL NEED FORGIVENESS. 271 gospel of God our Saviour. If even the holiest of the saints of God be still chargeable with many sins, and must build their hope of heaven exclusively on the atoning sacrifice and meritori- ous obedience of the Lord Jesus, what is to become of those who have no part nor lot in Christ at all ! God himself hath told us that " He will by no means clear the guilty" (Exod. xxxiv. 7). There is no condemnation, indeed, to them that are in Christ Jesus, because He hath redeemed them from the curse of the law, by bearing it in their room. But out of Christ our God is, and can be no other, to sinners, than a consuming fire. To suffer sin to go unpunished, would be to subvert the authority of that law which is the pillar of His own moral government, and to unsettle all distinction between evil and good. Let, therefore, fond and self-pleasing sentimentalists say or think what tliey may, there are but two alternatives. The sinner must be either pardoned or punished; and as there can be no pardon, consist- ently with the honour and integrity of the divine law and government, save that which rests on the substitution and sacrifice of Christ, there is no other name but His under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life : and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John iii. 36). But while this that has now been noticed is a great truth on one side, there is a truth hardly less important, to which we must give earnest heed, on the other side. Because it is entirely and absolutely on the footing, not of our own righteousness, but of the righteousness of Christ, that we become just with God — just in the eye of His holy law, and therefore freed from condemnation and invested with a covenant right or title to eternal life; — because this is so, we are not, therefore, to conclude that oui* own personal righteousness or sanctification is a matter of no moment; and that little or no account will be made of our having, or not having it, at the ajDi^eariug and kingdom of Jesus Christ. "Without holiness no man shall sue the Lord" (Ileb. 272 JklOKE ABOUT WISDOM. xii. 14). There must be a "meetness" for the inheritance of the saints, as well as a legal right to enjoy it; and these two, though in their own nature distinct from one another, are yet never in reality separate. He who, by faith, becomes a par- taker of the righteousness of Christ, is made, by that same faith, a partaker of the spirit of Christ. Christ is made of God to every true believer, "wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctifica- tion, and redemption" (1 Cor. i. 30). The possession of the spirit of Christ, is the test of the possession of the righteousness of Christ. True, indeed, there is not even a just man — a justified man — upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not ; that doetli good so exclusively and so perfectly as to be without sin. The law of sin, which is in his members, still wars against the higher law of his regenerated mind, and more or less at times prevails. But there is this grand and fundamental distinction between him and all the impenitent and unbelieving, that the germ of a new and divine life has been implanted in his soul. The love of God has been shed abroad in his heart. He is a new creature. Old things are passing aAvay, and all old things are becoming new. He is putting off, through grace, the old man, which is corrupt with the deceitful lusts, and is putting on the new man, Avhich "is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him" (Col. iii. 10). That process is going on in his soul which is destined to issue in the spotless purity and consummate blessedness of heaven. "As with open face be- holding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, he is changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. iii. 18). The great and momentous truths which Solomon, in the foregoing context, has been setting forth, he had searched out and studied in the diligent use of that divine wisdom, whose excellency it is his main object to commend. That the pos- sessions and pleasures of this world could none of them furnish a satisfying portion for man, and that such a portion could be found only in fearing God and keeping His commandments — EVEN THE WISEST KNOW LITTLE. 273 "all this he had proved by wisdom." These were concliLsions which this only infallible authority had fully sanctioned and established. He did not mean, indeed, to affirm that ho had been able to solve all the mysteries of human life, or to penetrate into all the deep things which lie hidden in the mind of God. He had said, indeed, "I will be wise." He had set his heart on understanding all mysteries and all knowledge. In that vain confidence to which at one time he had given way, he had imagined himself to be equal to the task of unlocking every secret, whether of nature or of Providence, and of leaving no diffi.culty unexplained. Time and the trial had undeceived him, and had taught him to form a humbler and juster estimate of the powers that are given to man. Profound and comprehensive as his understanding was, a thousand things eluded its grasp. The dark problems which he had thought to solve remained, many of them, as far from solution as ever. Such was the experience of Solomon, and such will, and must be, the experience of every finite mind. He alone who called this vast and complicated universe into being can scale all the heights and sound all the depths of its mighty plan. As for man, even the wisest of men, he is but of yesterday, and knows nothing. Feeling and con- fessing the incompetency of the human mind to grapple with those many questions that arise, — connected with the being and government of God, with the phenomena of the material world, and with the nature, condition, and destiny of man, — he makes this significant statement, " I said, I will be wise ; but it was far from me : that which is far off and exceeding deep, who can find it out?" Shallow minds think that they know all. Intellects, like Solomon's, of a higher order, vividly realize the flict, ^that even the commonest things are full of mystery. We speak familiarly, for example, of the instinct of the animals of the lower creation — of that singular power by which they know, without a teacher, what to choose and what to avoid in seeking their food — when and where to go when the rigours of one climate make it needful to find another of a more genial kind. " The stork in the heaven 274 MORE ABOUT WISDOM. knoweth lier appointed times ; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow observe the time of their coming" (Jer. viii. 7). We give this power a name, but who can describe its nature and working, or tell what it is ? It is not experience, for it goes before experience. It is not reason, for it is wholly independent alike of proof and argument. The philosopher, bent on finding it out, may say with Solomon, " I will be wise ;" but, like him also, he will be constrained to acknowledge, as the issue of all his investigations, that it is far from him. So it is with ten thou- sand other things. Of facts and phenomena we know something, but of the essence or principle of things we know nothing at all. Who has ever been able to detect and disclose the hidden princi- ple of life either in the animal or vegetable world 1 We can trace the growth of a plant or flower, and we can tell what will help or hinder its development, and we can describe all the parts of which it is composed, and trace their mutual relations and uses ; but how its life began, or in what its life consists, or why it takes invariably its own determinate form, and size, and texture, and colour, who can tell? We can get no further than this — to refer it all to the will and power of the great First Cause. And yet to what does this amount but to a confession of our ignorance ? For in so speaking we have only passed from a less to a greater mystery. What do we know of the relation between the life of the invisible Jehovah, and tha,t of the weed or worm which we tread beneath our feet? What do we know of the principle of that life that pulsates within our own breasts? What do we know of the essence of the human spirit, or of the nature of that union which, in our present state of being, makes it and the body one — one, and yet two — two, and yet one. And if from the creature we ascend to the Creator, from the nature of man to the nature of God, how utterly are we lost in the vain endeavour to fathom, or even to form any definite and tangible conception of, such mysteries as tlie trinity of persons in the one glorious God- head — the eternity and immensity of His being — the origin and execution of His decrees — the existence of evil under His holy TO GOD ALONE THERE ARE NO SECRETS. 27.") and righteous government — His dealings with men in providence and in grace; — when we venture to confront such subjects of con- templation as these, it is like looking into the ftxce of the noonday- sun. The eye of even the strongest mind is overpowered by that "light inaccessible and full of glory," in which Jehovah dwells; and bowing down into the dust, in humble and holy- reverence, before His infinite and adorable majesty, we can but say with the Psalmist of old, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it" (Psalm cxxxix. 6); or with the apostle Paul, "0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are His j udg- ments, and His ways past finding out ! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counseller? or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again ? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things : to whom be glory for ever. Amen" (Rom xi. 33-36). From the tenor of the 25th verse, it would seem as if Solomon, baflSed in his vain attempt to search out things that were altogether beyond his reach, had subsequently given to his inquiries a humbler but more practical and useful turn, by directing them towards questions that bear more immediately on man's own personal responsibilities, dangers, and duties. "I applied mine heart," he goes on to say, "to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness." Hitherto — that is in the days of his vanity — he had been drifted or driven about, upon a sea without a shore. The speculations in which he had indulged had conducted him to no certain or satisfying conclusions; while the 2:)leasures he had pursued, like the storms of the deep, had left him weary and exhausted, and had only carried him further away from that haven of happiness and rest and peace, at which he had longed to arrive. Schooled by this sad experience into a better frame of mind, his desire now was to find a surer guide than his own erring nature. He felt that he had yet to learn — or at least to 276 MORE ABOUT WISDOM. learn over again, by going back to his purer and happier youth — what true wisdom is. This grand discovery at length he had fully made. Aided by this divine light, and estimating all things by this divine standard, he had looked into the reason of things — into the causes to which particular and prevalent forms of evil were to be traced. Especially had he sought to know what were the worst, the most insidious, the most perilous shapes which evil assumes. Connecting the latter part of the 25th verse with what immediately follows in the 26th verse, this that has now been stated would appear to be the idea meant to be conveyed by knowing "the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness." Folly, in Scripture, is another name for ungodliness. Of this folly there are many kinds. To know the wickedness of folly, the wickedness of foolishness and mad- ness, seems equivalent to knowing the worst species of it. He is evidently pointing, moreover, to his own personal experience. In his own wild career he had come in contact with folly, and he had himself wrought folly of many sorts. And now, com- paring all these one with another, so as to ascertain to which of them the pre-eminence of evil should be assigned, this was the conclusion at which he had arrived, " And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands." The case of the man whom she is permitted to assail is all but desperate. "AVhoso pleaseth God shall escape from her ; but the sinner shall be taken by her." These terribly significant words point plainly to the same seducer of whose base and destructive arts so startling a picture is given in chapter vii. of the book of Proverbs, where Solomon thus speaks, "Hearken unto me now therefore, ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded : yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death" {y. 24-27). This is a painful subject, and one of which it were a shame THE WOMAN WHOSE HEART IS SNARES. 277 even to speak, at least here, in any other than remote and dis- tant terms. To be wholly silent, however, regarding it, and especially when the exposition of God's Word brings it immedi- ately into view, were to fail in a great and fundamental duty. Would that Solomon's warning counsel were no longer needed ! But who that knows anything of the " wickedness of folly," can need to be told that she whose "heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are as bands" is still, as of old, dragging thousands to perdition. " In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night, . . . she is loud and stubborn ; her feet abide not in the house. JSTow is she without, now in the streets, and lietli in wait at every corner," in prosecution of her shameless, loathsome, and infamous trade. And yet, dark and revolting as her wickedness may be, there is a wickedness more revolting and darker still, and that is the wickedness of those who have made her what she is. Let all such remember that if there be truth in the testimony of God they shall have their part, — unless divine mercy interpose to snatch them from the abyss, — in the lake that burneth Avith fire and brimstone, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched ! Well mio-ht Solomon kindle this beacon lisjht to scare others from the pit in which himself had been so nearly lost for ever. When we read chapter xi. of the 1st book of Kings, we find no difiiculty in understanding the strong, or, as it may at first sight ajDpear, harsh and exaggerated statement, which, in the 27 th and 28th verses of this passage, he proceeds to make. '• Behold, this have I found, saith the Preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account : which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not : one man among a thousand have I found ; but a woman among all those have I not found." We are not surely to understand this as a general charge against the female sex ; or as meaning to assert that piety and virtue are more rarely to be found among them than among the male portion of the human race. There can hardly be any reasonable doubt that the very con- 2/8 MOEE ABOUT WISDOM. trary is true. Never, perhaps, has there been any period in the history of the visible church of God, and certainly never in these more modern times concerning which we are best informed, in which the majority of those who lived in the fear and love of God were not women. Solomon here is evidently speaking, and that as a humbled penitent, of his own particular case. He had loved "many strange women;" outdoing, in this re- spect, the laxity and the luxury of the heathen monarchs around him. In reckless defiance of the warning voice of the God of Israel he had broken loose from all the restraints of domestic purity; and from among the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites, had taken to himself, after the custom of oriental kings, a multitude of wives and concubines, who turned away his heart from the Lord — " For it came to pass," we are told, in the history of his reign, " when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods : and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as did David his father. Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomi- nation of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And like- wise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solo- mon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel" (1 Kings xi. 4-9). Is it any wonder that in such a household, even among the thousand he had gathered into it, one solitary example of real goodness could not be found? Among his male attendants and courtiers, gay and dissolute as the society of the palace had be- come, one might now and then be met with who had not for- gotten the piety and the integrity of other and better days. Such a result was exactly what might have been expected from Solomon's many wives. 279 the very nature of the case. And now lie refers to it, not as it it were fitted to excite surprise, but rather that he might hold it up as a warning to all others to beware of pursuing the course which had brought about this painful and humbling state of things. The passage, in short, is to be regarded as an earnest and solemn pleading against the indulgence of those fleshly lusts that war against the soid ; those irregular and unlawful desires, by the base gratification of which such multitudes are drowned in destruction and perdition. It is a pleading for conjugal fidelity and domestic purity, in harmony with the great primeval law by which polygamy and concubinage are alike condemned, as fatal equally to the happi- ness and to the holiness of man. As Solomon had sown, so had he also reaped. Disregarding the law of his God, and following the ways of the world and the inclinations of his own sinful heart, he had forfeited everything like domestic happiness and comfort, and had made all but shipwreck of his faith. Among all those many women whom his pride and his passions had gathered around him, " counting one by one to find out the account," he had not found even one in whom he could confide — not one on whose honour and love he could rely. Perhaps it was to this bitter and humiliating experience we are indebted for that beautiful picture which he has elsewhere drawn of the true helpmeet for man. "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. . . She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distafi". She stretcheth out her hand to the poor ; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. . . . She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. . . . Her children arise up, and call her blessed ; her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favour is 280 MORE ABOUT WISDOM. deceitful, and beauty is vain : but a woman that feareth tlie Lord, slie shall be praised" (Prov. xxxi. 10-30). The review which Solomon had thus been making of human folly and wickedness, brings him to this very solemn con- clusion — " Lo ! this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." Though his wisdom, deep and large as it was, had failed to solve the great mystery of the fall of man, it had clearly taught him this — that the fall was a fact ; that however the two things were to be harmonized, both of them were undeniably true; that man was originally pure and holy, and that now he was guilty and depraved ; that man, and not God, was chargeable with this melancholy change. And as it was so at the first, so is it still. '' Let no man," therefore, " say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God : for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man : but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed" (James i. 13, 14). Let us rejoice, and give God thanks, that, as by the offfence of one, even of the first Adam, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so, by the righteousness of one, i. e., of the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. HUMAN WISDOM IS LIMITED. 281 CHAPTER XII. THE DOCTEINE OF WISDOM AS TO RULERS AND SUBJECTS. " Who is as the wise man ? and who knoweth the interpretation of a tiling ? a man's wisdom maketh his face to shine, and the boldness of his face shall be changed. " I counsel tkee to keep the king's commandment, and that in regard of the oath of God. Be not hasty to go out of his siglit: stand not in an evil thing; for he doeth whatsoever pleaseth liim. Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him. What doest thou ? "Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment. Because to every purpose there is time and judg- ment, therefore the misery of man w great upon him. For he kiioweth not that which shall be: for who can tell him when it shall be ? " There is no man that hath power over the spirit, to retain the spirit ; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge inthat war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that ai-e given to it." — Eccles. viii. 1-8. TOWAKDS the close of the preceding chapter, Solomon liad been led to speak, with deep humility, of the infirmity of the human mind — of the limited range and grasp of its powers — of its utter inability to grapple with the mysteries of nature and of providence, or to search into the deep things of God. In the vain confidence which his remarkable gifts and attainments had, in the days of his folly, inspired, he had at one time forgotten this truth, and had been fain to persuade himself that no question could be too difficult for his profound and penetrating intellect to solve. Time and experience had rebuked this presumption, and taught him to form a far lower and juster estimate of wliat is competent to man. In making this confession, however, it was no part of his design to undervalue the distinction between knowledge and ignorance, or to abate in the very least, any one of the strong expressions in which he had been previously cele- Ijrating the praises of wisdom. 18 282 CIVIL OBEDIENCE. It is well, indeed, and most necessary to keep tlie fact constantly in view, that there are limits beyond which no finite understanding — not even that of the loftiest archangel — can penetrate. The things that are revealed belong unto us and unto our children; the secret things belong unto the Lord. But, at the same time, not less needful is it to re- member and to realize this other consideration, that what is revealed — what God has placed within the reach and capacity of human intelligence — it is at once our duty and our privilege to endeavour to learn. To stop short where God has set bounds to our knowledf^e — where He has said. Hitherto shalt thou come and no further — and to be contented that the proud waves of human speculation and philosophy should here be stayed — is only the fitting homage which the finite mind of the creature ofiers to the infinite mind of Him whose knowledge is unsearch- able, and whose ways are past finding out. But to remain wilfully and contentedly ignorant of those works and ways of God which He has opened up to our inquiries, and invited us to search and study, is to do him flagrant dishonour, and to degrade our own nature itself " For the soul to be without knowledge, it is not good" (Prov. xix. 2). "The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure in them" (Psalm cxi. 2). God made man after His own image, and" one of the grand distinctive features of that glorious model after which man was thus formed, was knowledge. God himself is the supreme intelligence, and with a portion of that intelli- gence He endowed the human soul. That intelligence, it is true, as regards things spiritual and divine, fallen man has lost. His mind is blinded, his understanding is darkened through the deceitfulness of sin; and not without the aid of the regenerating, enlightening, and sanctifying Spirit of God can this darkness and blindness be done away. Most truly, therefore, is it said, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That humbling sense of personal guilt and unworthiuess — that realizing appre- hension of the divine majesty and glory — that sentiment of WISDOM DIGNIFIES ITS POSSESSOR. 283 liumble and holy reverence with which the Spirit of God fills the renewed mind and draws it towards Himself — lies at the very- foundation of all true wisdom. It is under theguiding, solemnizing, purifying influence of this fear of the Lord, that things begin at lengtli to be seen in their true light, and to be judged of according to their real character and worth. A mind under this gracious influence finds God everywhere, in His works as well as in His Word; and he values the discoveries which these impart, chiefly as making him better acquainted with God's adorable perfections and blessed will, and as thereby fitting him more fully, intelligently, and heartily to glorify and to enjoy the God of his salvation. The wise man, of whom Solomon intends to speak in the opening verse of this chapter, is evidently a man wise in the large and comprehensive sense now described — a man not only of a spiritual mind, but of a mind cultivated, expanded, and strengthened by much converse both with the kingdom of nature and with the kingdom of grace. Though it be true that even he, with all the aids which both divine and human learning may have given him, must still confess that he knows nothing yet as he ought to know, how immense, notwithstanding, are hia advantages, and how eminent his position, as compared with the ignorant and thoughtless crowd who care for none of these things. Not only are a thousand things easily understood by him of which they can make nothing at all, but there are endless sources of instruction, and enjoyment, and usefulness open to him, from which indolent, and depraved, and grovelling minds are wholly excluded. "Who, therefore," asks Solomon, "is as the wise man? and who knoweth (knoweth, that is to say, as he knoweth) the interpretation of a thing?" His wisdom is a far njbler possession than wealth or worldly greatness ! What an unspeakably grander achievement is it to have enlarged the bounds of human knowledge — with the key of science to have unlocked some of the great secrets of nature— or by profound learning and patient research to have thrown fresh light ui)on the works or upon the Word of God — than to have amassed a 284) CIVIL OBEDIENCE. fortune, or inherited a peerage, or spent a life in luxurious ease and pleasure ! Who would not rather be the Paul who shook to its very foundations the heathenism of the ancient world, and planted the holy and beneficent religion of Christ upon its ruins; or the Luther, or Calvin, or Knox, who broke up the sleep, and stagnation, and superstition of the dark ages, and emancipated half the nations of Christendom from the soul- destroying tyranny and corruption of the Church of Kome 1 — Who would not rather be one of these than the proudest and mightiest of those princes and potentates with whom, in their godlike work, these men were called, at the hazard of their lives, to contend? Or even, if we descend from sacred and spiritual to mere secular things — who would not rather be the Gutemberg whose illustrious invention of the art of printing has given wings to knowledge, and scattered it abroad over all the earth, and called into existence a power on the side of freedom, and humanity, and truth, mightier than the sword, and stronger than the armies of confederated kings ? Who would not rather be the Newton whose immortal discovery of the law of gravi- tation solved the great problem of the material universe, and taught us to understand how it is that, in the words of Job, the earth "hangeth upon nothing;" and how, through the vast regions of immensity, the hand of the Almighty guideth •'Arcturus with his sons?" Or yet again, who would not rather be the once humble, but now world -famed James Watt, to whose inventive genius the nations are indebted for that motive power, whose gigantic force, and whose thousand marvellous adaptations constitute the wonder of our age? — Who would not infinitely rather be one of these wise men, than the owner of millions or the heir of a crown ? It is true that knowledge and virtue — science and godliness — have not always been found walking hand in hand. The one, alas ! has too frequently been arrayed against the other. Mo- rality has never, perhaps, been more flagrantly outraged, nor the gospel more virulently assailed, than it has sometimes been WISDOM DIGNIFIES ITS POSSESSOR. 285 hy men who were chiefs in all the learning of this world. Vy\\t surely there is nothing in the nature of the case to necessitate this variance. All truth, whether natural or revealed, is and must be harmonious. The most enlightened student of the works of nature ought to be the most reverent student of the Word of God — a combination, indeed, of which many beautiful examples have at all periods been exhibited, and never, perhaps, have these been more numerous than in the present day. After all, they are the smatterers, rather than the masters, of human science, who have oftenest signalized their hostility to tlie Bible. The conceit and half knowledge of a little learning may provoke men to scepticism, but deeper knowledge, as has been observed by one of the profoundest thinkers that ever lived, rather brings them back to religion. Through a process of this very kind Solomon himself had passed. And it is only when, as in his case, science is baptized by a spirit of the fear of the Lord, that its possessor becomes truly wise. Till this diviue light illumines his soul, his wisdom is no better than foolish- ness with God. But when thus guided and sanctified by an influence from above, what a precious attainment is knowledge ! — what elevation and dignity does it impart to the character of its possessor! — with how mighty an influence for good does it clothe him! — how many means of usefulness to his fellowmen does it place in his hands ! It is in the view of such a man — a man informed with varied knowledge, and imbued with heavenly graces — that we recognize all the meaning and fitness of Solomon's words, "Who is as the wise man? and who (as he) kuoweth the interpretation of a thing? a man's wisdom maketh his face to shine, and the boldness of his face shall be changed." In the latter part of this verse there is considerable difficulty. The expression that "a man's wisdom maketh his flice to shine*' appears to point to the power which a pure and cultivated mind unquestionably exerts upon the human countenance, imparting to it that look of life, and intelligence, and benignity, by which it is so easily and so broadly, in most cases, distinguishable from 2S6 CIVIL OBEDIENCE. the countenance of the untutored savage, or of the wretched slave of ignorance and crime. When Moses came down from the mount in the wiklerness, where he had been during forty days in immediate converse with God, his face shone, we are told, with a supernatural effulgence ; as if it had caught some faint reflection of that light inaccessible and ftill of glory that surrounds the presence of the Most High. Even so, although without the operation of any other than purely natural causes, does the face of the wise man catch somewhat of the heavenly glow of those divine and ennobling thoughts with which his soul is exercised and filled. They do literally " make his face to shine." So far all is sufficiently plain. But when it is added that "the boldness of his face shall be changed," we find it less easy to de- cide as to the interpretation which this clause of the sentence should receive. Attempts have been made by various commen- tators to bring out a clearer and more satisfactory signification, by suggesting a different translation of the original words. Tliese attempts, however, appear to be hardly justified, either by the results they have produced or by the somewhat violent straining at the expense of which they have been reached. ' Boldness' is, perhaps, scarcely an adequate representative of the corresponding Hebrew term, which may with greater strict- ness and accuracy be rendered by 'effrontery' or 'arrogance.' Modified to this extent, what Solomon seems here to say is, that wisdom communicates to the face of its owner an aspect of meekness and gentleness very different from that air of impe- rious and boastful confidence which once it wore. None is so aiTOgant as the ignorant or half-instructed; none so unpretend- ing as the man of largest knowledge and deepest thought. So understood, the sense of the passage is both simple and self- consistent, and fittingly and gracefully comjDletes that tribute to the excellence and attractiveness of wisdom which the verse, as a whole, is so manifestly designed to convey. No one, we apprehend, can intelligently and candidly consider this verse, either in itself, or in its relation to the foregoing WISDOM DIGNIFIES ITS POSSESSOR. 287 context, without arriving at the conclusion that it is meant to commend, not piety alone, but, in conjunction with piety, every- thing that bears on the culture and development of the moral and intellectual nature of man. True, indeed, the fear of the Lord, as has been already said, is the foimdatiou and essence of that wisdom which Solomon has it in view to celebrate; but not less true it is that there is included in that wisdom every- thing that belongs to a thoroughly instructed mind. Though piety is always a lovely and a sacred thing — even when it is that of the humblest and most unlettered member of the human family — and never fails, where it is consistent and earnest, to shed grace and dignity around the lowliest and obscurest walks of human life — not less certain it is that piety reaches its loftiest stature and its most perfect symmetry only in those in whom it is associated with the varied knowledsre, the larf^^e intel- ligence, and the sober judgment of an assiduously cultivated, justly balanced, and well-accomplished mind. To the highest forms of such a character it may be within the compass of com- paratively few to rise; but to make some progress in the direction of such a character is more or less within the reach of all. Nor is it one of the least hopeful and encouraging features of tlie times in which we live, that there seems to be a growing dispo- sition, and especially among young men, to seek something better than those worthless pleasures and frivolous amusements by which their leisure time was wont to be consumed. There appears to be now an increasing desire and relish for a purer and more intellectual class of enjoyments and pursuits. The recent and rapid multiplication of those numerous associations for mu- tual improvement, and for the acquisition and diffusion of know- ledge, which constitute so prominent a characteristic of this age, and to which men of the best minds and of the first mnk in the country are willingly lending their aid, are all strongly indi- cative of the working and the progress of this gratifying change. To all such efforts we gladly avail ourselves of the opportunity which the exposition of this portion of the divine Word affords, 288 CIVIL OBEDIENCE. of saying, God speed. They are unquestionably in the right direction, and, so far as they go, they are of a thoroughly right kind. They are important helps towards a better state of things ; but let it never be forgotten that although^ without this higher mental training and these larger intellectual acqui- sitions, none can hope to be " as the wise man" of whom Solomon speaks, there is something else which, to make up the character of such a man, is more essential still; and that is a living and abiding faith in the glorious and momentous truths of God's holy Word. There is but one book that can make men wise unto salvation, and that is the Bible ; and he alone whom the Divine Spirit has disposed and enabled to sit down as a little child at the feet of Jesus, and to be taught by Him who is the power of God and the wisdom of God, can ever himself become truly wise. From pronouncing this high commendation upon wisdom itself, Solomon proceeds to deliver some of those practical ad- monitions which wisdom suggests. " I counsel thee to keep the king's commandment, and that in regard of the oath of God. Be not hasty to go out of liis sight : stand not in an evil thing ; for he doeth whatsoever pleaseth him. Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him. What doest thou? Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing : and a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment." This passage evidently has respect to the duty of civil obedience — the obedience, that is, which subjects owe to the constituted authorities under which, in God's providence, they find themselves placed. Civil government is an ordinance of God. He " is not the author of confusion but of peace ;" and this not less in the state than in "all the churches of the saints" (1 Cor. xiv. 33). To avoid confusion and secure peace, government is indispensable. Without it, society would be sj^eedily dissolved. Let it not be thought, therefore, to be beneath the dignity of divine wisdom to issue its inspired and authoritative counsels on a subject like this. In the New Testament the same thing WISDOM COMMENDS LOYALTY. 289 is done in the most explicit terms. " Let every soul," writes the apostle Paul in his epistle to the Romans (xiii. 1-5), "be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God : the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resist eth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God : a.nd they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation (or condemnation). For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou not then be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same : for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake." These last words of the apostle, "for conscience sake," are simply a repetition and reinforcement of this far older saying of Solomon, "and that in regard of the oath of God." Civil obedience is not a question between man and man merely ; but, as we are here emphatically reminded, it is also a question between man and God. Both the ruler and the subject, in all their mutual relations and obligations, are under law to the King of kings and Lord of lords. Nor is it unworthy of notice that the same "oath of God" expressed or understood, by which the subject is bound to keep the king's commandment, limits and regulates the very obligation which it imposes. So long as obedience to the king's commandment does not involve dis- obedience to any commandment of God himself, obedience is imperative; and that not only "for wrath," not only from a prudent regard to the punishment by which resistance to it may be followed, but "for conscience sake." The oath of God exalts loyalty into a religious duty. The king, it is true, may err in the exercise of his authority. His laws may be neither j ust nor wise. They may, in many respects, be hurtful rather than helpful to the interests of his people ; but so long as they do not require the sub- ject to sin, his duty is to obey. 290 CIVIL OBEDIENCE. There is nothing, indeed, in this fundamental doctrine in the very least to restrain the subject, from using all com- petent and constitutional means to have an injurious law re- pealed, or to ol)tain redress of any civil grievance of which he may have cause to complain. Under a government so happily constituted as our own, such means are always ac- cessible, and, when rightly employed, they seldom fail to gain their end. But still, while the commandment is in force — while the law stands — to resist it, is to resist the ordinance of God. There is a point, it is true, where submission ceases to be a duty and begins to be a crime. When the three youthful companions of Daniel were commanded to fall down and to worship the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up in the plain of Dura, the oath of God, instead of binding them to obey, bound them, on the contrary, to refuse obedience. Accordingly, when they were threatened with the king's wrath, this argument, unsupported by the higher one of conscience, had no power. They were not careful as to the consequences of a course which, however it might displease the king, they knew would be approved of God. The case was the same when, at a later period, Daniel himself, instead of being com- manded to worship an idol, was forbidden to worship the one living and true God. This commandment of Darius the king he could not and would not keep ; but went, in open disregard of it, to his own house and kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he did aforetime. The principle which these memorable cases exemplified we find still further illustrated in New Testament times. When Peter and John were expressly prohibited by the rulers of the Jewish Sanhedrim from speaking at all or teaching in the name of Jesus, tliey did not hesitate for a moment as to the course which duty required them to pursue. The oath of God could never bind them here, because God could never issue contradictory decrees — decrees, obedience to the one of which involved dis- obedience to the other. Their God and Saviour had expressly WISDOM FORBIDS SEDITION. 291 commanded them to go and preach the gospel to every creature. The opposite command now issued could obviously, therefore, have no sanction from Him. And their reply, accordingly, to those who gave it, was prompt and decisive : "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard" (Acts iv. 19, 20). Having respect, however, to the implied and important limi- tation which the oath of God itself thus places upon the binding authority of the king's commandment, the great general doctrine already laid down remains — that, subject to this limitation, obedience to the commandment is a duty owing, not to the king only or chiefly, but to God, the supreme Lord and Ruler over all. Therefore, says Solomon, "Be not hasty to go out of his sight." Beware of i-ashly casting off allegiance to your lawful sovereign under any temporary impulse of wounded pride or passion ; or of being led away into sedition or rebellion by the specious plea of reforming the existing order of things. Ahithoj^hel did this in the days of David, and he came, in consequence, to a miserable end. The case must be strong and clear, indeed, that will justify rebellion and civil war. Or, again, if any man have been seduced by evil counsel, or hurried by resentment or ambition into some unlawful attitude or act, let him not " stand" in the "evil thing." To persist is only to aggravate the offence, and to make its punishment more inevitable and more severe. When we are conscious of having committed any wrong, whether against God or man, it is alike our duty and our safety to confess it and to cease from it at once. To enforce this wholesome counsel, Solomon reminds those whom it concerns that the king s power — the power, in other words, of law and government — is very great. The law never sleeps. It has a retejitive memory, and it has long arms. Joab, proud and imperious, and confiding in the impunity which his position at the head of David's army appeared to give him, trampled on the king's commandment af^ain and again, and especially by his ruthless deeds in slaying 292 CIVIL OBEDIENCE. Abner and Amasa; but, nevertheless, he found to his cost, m the end, that where the word of a king is there is power. The insulted majesty of law and justice was at length and terribly avenged, when Joab was slain at the very horns of the altar, and his ))lood returned upon his own head. It is, no doubt, strong language to use in reference to any earthly potentate, '• Who may say unto him, What doest thou? " We readily, indeed, recognize its fitness when we find it a^^plied, in the book of Daniel, to the Great Jehovah — of whom it is there said, in testimony of his absolute supremacy, that " He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest thou?" (iv. 35). But though it be with reference to God alone that the words in question can be abso- lutely and without qualification employed, there is also a most important, though a more restricted sense, in which tliey are applicable to an earthly king. Regarded as the chief and ulti- mate authority in the realm, there is no appeal from his deci- sion; there is no higher tribunal on earth to which the cause can be transferred. When the Roman governor at Cesarea would have adjudged Paul to be carried back to Jerusalem, where Paul knew that wicked men had banded themselves together to take away his life, he could, and did arrest that judgment, by appealing unto Coesar; but when the imperial sentence should once have been pronounced, who could say unto Caesar, What doest thou? To no other earthly power was he subject or re- sponsible; and therefore his decree, be it wise or unwise, just or unjust, must take effect. There is, indeed, an appeal of which even the humblest victim of despotic power, suffering for right- eousness sake, can never be deprived — the sublimest appeal that can be taken upon earth — the appeal which the persecuted pa- triot or martyr addresses on the scaffold or at the stake to the righteous Lord of all. Before the dread tribunal of that Almighty and Infallible Judge the greatest monarch must one day stand, side l)y side with the meanest of those whom on earth he had WISDOM LIMITS CIVIL AUTHORITY. 293 trampled in the dust. Then shall he receive the final and tlio due reward of his deeds, and then shall all wrongs be redressed. In this fallen world we may still see, too often, what Solomon beheld of old — "the place of judgment that wickedness was there, and the place of righteousness that iniquity was there;" but, at the bar of the Sovereign Judge, they that were oppressed shall find a comforter, and on the side of tlie oppressors there shall be power no more. The mightiest of these oppressors shall then find how terribly true it is — that " He that is higher than the highest regardeth, and that there be higher than they " (v. 8). While such observations as these naturally suggest them- selves in connection with such a passage of Scripture as the one before us, it is f)i'oper, at the same time, to bear in mind that Solomon, in uttering these counsels of divine wisdom, is con- templating, not the abuse, but the right and legitimate use of civil power. Laws, neither divine nor human, are made for exceptional cases. When these laws confer authority, they of necessity assume that it will be lawfully exercised. If excep- tional cases arise, they will generally be found to make suf- ficiently plain, to those who have to deal with them, the path of duty. The Word of God does not define the precise circum- stances in which it may become lawful for children to resist the authority of their parents. It makes obedience the rule, and leaves the exception, when it occurs, to explain itself; as it will seldom fail to do to any sound and sober mind, by the help of those other principles, elsewhere laid down, which are of a nature to bear upon it. In like manner, the Word of God does not define the precise circumstances that may justify a peojde in taking up arms against the government under which they live. When such an unhappy contingency arrives it will speak for itself Authority could never command respect, or be in- vested with its fitting character of sacredness, if it were com- pelled to bear upon its very front a proclamation of the condi- tions upon which it might be set at nought. Hence the unquali- fied language in whicli Solomon speaks in this passage, — and in 29-i CIVIL OBEDIENCE. which the apostle Paul speaks in the corresponding passage already quoted, — of the authority and power of a king. Hav- ing this consideration in view, every difficulty in the way of either interpreting or accepting that language, disappears. On this footing, "whoso keepeth the king's commandment shall fear no evil." According to God's institution, "rulers are not a terror to good works," and therefore the loyal subject has no cause to be afraid. While he does that which is good, he is entitled to have, and ordinarily will receive protection, if not praise. He shall " feel no evil thing j" the strong arm of the law is around him, to shield him from harm. Moreover, there is, to the wise man, this further reason for keep- ing the king's commandment, even when it may appear to him to be opi:)ressive and unwise — that the "v/ise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment." He will bear the wrongs or the hardship now, when there is no means or opportunity of redress; and will wait patiently for the fitting season and the right method of ob- taining justice. He will not rashly and rebelliously take the law into his own hand, or, by placing himself in causeless and hope- less collision with it, aggravate the evils to which he is exposed, and bring himself to inevitable ruin. It is indeed a truly happy and blessed thing for the people of this favoured land that they have so little occasion for being exercised upon such questions as these. It is not given to us to deal with any of the painful and perplexing difficulties to which unlawful or abused autho- rity has so often given rise. Our fathers, in less auspicious times, have had more than once to pass through the fire of the terrible problems, which such a state of things may compel a people to solve. As for us, we sit under our vine and under our fig tree, with none to make us afraid. Kulers are not with us a terror to good works — as, alas ! they still too often are in many other parts of the world — but to the evil alone. Let us give the praise to Him who hath appointed the bounds of our habitations in so privileged a kingdom, and who hath bestowed upon us so goodly an heritage ; and let us study, through grace, WISDOM DISCERNETH TIME AND JUDGMENT. 295 in our several stations and callings, to lead " a quiet and peace- able life, in all godliness and honesty; for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour" (1 Tim. ii. 2, 3). And while we render, according to the apostolic precept, to all earthly authorities their dues — " tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour" (Eom. xiii. 7) — let us ever look above and beyond the rulers of earth to Him who is over all — God blessed for evermore. His law is holy, and His commandment holy, and just, and good. Its requirements are never grievous; and in the keeping of them it is ever found that there is a great reward. If, indeed, it were by the test of obedience to the divine law that our eternal destinies were to be decided, there could be no other portion for any of us but " a certain fearful looking for of judgment." But though the law be our rule and guide, it is not our master. Thanks be unto God, we are not under the law, but under grace. Of all who are acquitted and accepted in the great and notable day of the Lord, the unvarying testi- mony must be that of the apostle Paul — '' Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that, being justified by grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus iii. 5-7). In the immediately preceding verse Solomon had observed that "a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment. ' The wise man recognizes the great truth laid down in an earlier chapter of this book, that " to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven " (iii. 3). Accordingly, when he has any important work to do, or end to gain, he avails himself of the best means and the fittest opportunity. He does not expect, in reckless disregard of the course of nature, to reap liis harvest in the spring, nor does he impatiently snatch the fruit from the tree while it is still unripe and useless. Ho 296 CIVIL OBEDIENCE. makes his calculations and lays his plans. At the right season he sows his seed, and like the far-sighted husbandman, he has long patience for the reward of his toil. Even if the king's commandment should be unjust and oppressive, he is not hasty to go out of his siofht : he commits himself to no rash and ill- advised course of futile opposition. "When, at the instigation of Haman, Ahasuerus had issued his decree for the destruction of the Jews, Esther did not rush on the instant and unbidden into the royal presence, at the expense of violating the established usage of a despotic eastern court, and thereby precipitating, it might be, the very calamity she was so eager to avert. She first addressed herself for a period of three days to solemn fasting and prayer, and solicited others to engage in the same exercise, in behalf of her momentous and yet perilous enterprise; and having thus committed her way unto the Lord, she took pains to bring about an interview with the king, in circumstances the most favourable to her design ; and tlius discerning " both time and judgment" she became the deliverer of her people. Neither she nor they felt "any evil thing," In prosecuting even the purest and worthiest aims this jDrudent forethought is not by any means always exhibited, and great mis- chief and unhappiness are often the consequence. Every day the best intentions are frustrated, and the noblest schemes made to miscarry, on account of the indiscretion and in consideration with which they are followed out. Even good and pious men fail, too often, to realize the fact, that "to every purpose there is time and judgment;" and as the necessary result they bring, not un- frequently, much misery both upon others and upon themselves. In the outset of the passage before us, Solomon is at pains to point out this source of danger, as one against which it becomes the wise man to be upon his guard. It is not enough that we mean well, and that the object we have in view is right and good. There is such a thing, as the apostle Paul plainly inti- mates (E,om. xiv. IG), as making even our good to be evil spoken of. If we would avoid this injurious result, we must have due WISDOM DISCERNETH TIME AND JUDGMENT. 297 regard to those proprieties of time, and place, and circumstances which common sense and Christian courtesy require us to ob- serve. We may set all such considerations at nought ; and we may try to persuade ourselves that in doing so we are displaying, in a superior degree, the high qualities of boldness, and faithful- ness, and zeal. ]S"ot such, however, is the decision which divine wisdom will pronounce upon our conduct. Nor must we con- sider ourselves as persecuted or ill-used — as sufferers for right- eousness sake — when our own folly or petulance thus brings us into difficulties, or exposes us to dislike and opposition, or mars all the good which it was perhaps really and honestly in our heart to do. Our Lord did not think it unnecessary or unsuitable to caution his followers to be " wise as serpents," as well as to "be harmless as doves" (Matt. x. 16). It was by becoming all things to all men — by remembering, in other words, and acting on the principle, that to every purpose there is time and judg- ment — both a right season for every duty, and a right manner of performing it — that Paul gained so many to Christ. And no man ever was or ever will be very successful in any depart- ment of human affairs, and least of all in those which relate to the kingdom of God, who does not endeavour to observe the same rule. Certain it is that the neglect of that rule brings often great misery upon men. So far we have been examining the statement contained in this 6th verse in the light of what goes before it. The wise man whose heart discerneth both time and judgment — who dis- creetly selects the proper moment and the prudent way to carry out his purpose — gains his point, when the foolisli man, who pays no heed to such considerations, utterly fails. AVhen, how- ever, instead of looking back to what goes before the 6th verse we look forward to what comes after it, it may seem at first sight, as if it could be of no use to be thus forecasting the future, and regulating our conduct by any anticipated contingency seeing we are so completely ignorant of the course which things may take, and of the events which may be destined to arrive. 19 298 CIVIL OBEDIENCE. These may be such as entirely to overthrow all our most confident calculations, and to nullify all our most skilful plans. In short, takinof the 6th verse in immediate and exclusive connection with the 7th verse, it may appear to imply that the misery of which it speaks arises, not from disregarding the fact, that to " every purpose there is time and judgment," but rather from this cir- cumstance, that we do not and cannot know what is going to happen at all. In reality, however, there is no inconsistency between these two aspects of the statement, that "to every pur- pose there is time and judgment." It is true that no man knoweth " luliat shall be," and that neither can any one tell him ^^lulien it shall be/' but this is no reason why either the ' when ' or the ' what ' that may thus lie hidden in the inscru- table future, should be to us a matter of no concern. It is not by being utterly careless and indifferent upon the subject, that we can escape the evil that may be impending over us. It is true that we may aggravate that evil, or even create it when it has no actual existence, by tormenting ourselves with excessive or groundless anxieties and fears. As regards those futurities, against which no foresight can provide, the part of true wisdom is to follow the counsel of our blessed Lord — " Take therefore no thought for the morrow : for the morrow shall take thought for the thins's of itself. Sufiicient unto the day is the evil thereof" (Matt. vi. 34). But this very uncertainty which hangs over the future — this impossibility of finding out what shall be on the morrow — binds us to be only the more careful how we act to-day. Instead of exempting us from all responsibility, and leaving us at liberty to give way to the impulse or caprice of the hour, this uncertainty rather requires that we should observe the utmost circumspection, and be ready, so to speak, for any emergency that may arise. It i3 only when we have done all that is competent to us, and which the nature of the case calls for, or allows, that we are in a position to await with calmness the destined result. It is then we are truly in circumstances to leave the case and ourselves, without undue solicitude, in the hands of Him who WISDOM DISCERNETII TIME AND JUDGMENT. 299 doetli all tilings according to tlie good pleasure of His will. It is true tliat the grand protection against the disquietude wliich our ignorance of the future might otherwise produce, is a simple and realizing faith in the overruling providence of the all- powei'ful and only -wise God; and in His gracious promise, that all things shall work together for good to them that love Him. But the very existence of this fciith implies and de- mands the diligent use of all requisite and suitable means. If pains without prayer be impiety, prayer without pains is pre- sumption and mockery. " Wherefore criest thou unto me," said the Lord unto Moses, when, appalled by the difficulties of his position, hemmed in as he was between the sea and the hosts of the Egyptians, and discouraged by the clamours of the people, he was forgetting for the moment what it belonged to himself to do — "wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak unto the chil- dren of Israel that they go forward" (Exod. xiv. 15). It is when the child of God pursues this course — when he has done his own part, and has cast his care as to the issue on his Father who is in heaven — that he learns to say with the Psalmist, " The Lord is my light and my salvation ; whom shall I fear 1 the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid 1 . . . Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear : thousfh war should rise asjainst me, in this will I be confident" (Psalm xxvii. 1, 3). Viewed in such lights as these, how important is it to remem- ber this saying of Solomon, that " to every purpose there is time and judgment !" Because this is the fact, and because thought- less and improvident, or wilful and self-pleasing men v\'ill not regard it, therefore are they continually involving themselves and others in numberless evils. If these evils were sufficiently considered — if Christian men, especially, would reflect on the countless and incalculable mischiefs which are done every day to the cause of Christ, and to the interests of truth and righteous- ness, by rash acts, and by hasty and foolish words — the wisdom commended by Solomon would be more highly prized and more 300 CIVIL OBEDIENCE. assiduously cultivated than it is. If, indeed, those who are charofeable with such offences could but see beforehand the whole amount of the injury which their indiscretions are destined to produce — if they could see the great fire, the devouring confla- gration, which the "little matter," as they perhaps accounted it, of some intemperate proceeding or expression of theirs, becomes the means of kindling — they would surely have taken any course rather than one so pernicious. Just because we know not what shall be, and that no one can tell us when it shall be — because the future is thus shrouded in impenetrable obscurity — the more imperative is it upon all to walk circumspectly in the world, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time. In that future there is one thing that is inevitable — one event which we must make up our minds to face — one enemy from whose hands there is no escape. " There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit ; neither hath he power in the day of death : and there is no discharge in that war ; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it." There is a day coming, that is to say, when the earthly house of this tabernacle must be dissolved, and when the union that now subsists be- tween the material and mortal body and the immortal and im- material spirit shall be broken u^d. When that day arrives we may shrink from the impending change ; we may cling with stronger tenacity than ever to life ; and we may exhaust every effort which human skill and means can employ to prevent the dreaded catastrophe. But all in vain. There is no human hand that can arrest the departing spirit, or even for one brief and passing moment delay the appointed time of its going hence. The most skilful physician feels and acknowledges, in that day, his utter impotence. His most potent remedies cease to operate. The last enemy has grasped his victim, and refuses to let go his fatal hold. He is heedless alike of the tears of affection and of the agonies of despair. No price can procure a discharge from this mortal conflict. No substitute can relieve the sinking sufferer by taking his place. No ransom can redeem the cap- ^ THE LAST ENEMY. 301 tive whom the remorseless victor is bearing olT to tlie grave. Up till that terrible day the now doomed and dying man may have had no fear of God before his eyes, lie ma}- have so hardened himself in sin as to have lost all concern about his prospects in a future world. But his wickedness cannot avail to rescue him from death. To the dust his lifeless body must now return as it was, and his spirit — loaded with all its sins, unpardoned, unsanctified, unsaved — must return to God wlio gave it. If, then, divine wisdom be needed, in order to deal rightly and profitably with the affairs and interests of time, how much more in order so to deal with the interests and affairs of eternity ! If it be folly to run into temporal dangers, which prudence and forethought might have taught us to shun, how unspeakably greater the folly of rushing upon the thick bosses of the Al- mighty's buckler, aud losing our souls ! In the view of such an event as Solomon has here set before us, how appropriate is the Psalmist's prayer — " So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom !" (Ps. xc. 12). If we con- sider how few they are — how quickly they are passing away — how soon and how suddenly they may come to a close — and yet how much depends on our making a right use of them, what madness must it appear to be trifling them away as so many do, without almost a thought beyond the present hour ! — careful and troubled, it may be, about many tilings, but wil- fully and obstinately forgetting the one thing needful. " Behold, now is the accepted time ; behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. vi. 2). It is on this side the grave, if ever at all, we must " win Christ." It is to-day, if we will hear his voice. The sinner may say, "At another time — at a more convenient season ;" but he does so at his peril. To every purpose there is time and judgment. If we would succeed, even in the most ordinary earthly enterprise, we must watch for the fitting season, and be at pains to find out and follow the fitting course. If the husbandman idle away his spring, he must inevitably lose his 802 CIVIL OBEDIENCE. harvest; nor, if he employs himself in sowing tares, can he expect to gather wheat. Men are alive to such considerations when the concerns of this life are at stake ; but how often are they utterly disregarded in relation to the infinitely greater concerns of the life to come ! In the case of countless multi- tudes it would seem as if, in their view, time had nothing to do with eternity at all — as if they might live here without God, and yet possess His image and enjoy His favour hereafter. Let it never be forgotten that what a man soweth, that shall he also reap : they who sow to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; while they only who sow to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. That solemn charge which all have received — " occupy till I come" — has respect to the entire period of our earthly existence. It does not mean that we are to bethink ourselves of the account we have to give only when disease or old age shall have brought us to the brink of the tomb; nor does it mean that in this world we may apply the talents the Lord has committed to our trust according to our own carnal taste and pleasure, and that it will be time enough to apply them for His glory in the world to come. The lot we choose on earth will determine our lot in eternity. As the tree falls, so shall it lie. "■ He that is unjust," such is the Lord's righteous decree, " let him be unjust still : and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still : and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still" (Kev. xxii. 11). Blessed, therefore, are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. To do His commandments, is to believe on Him whom God hath sent ; for through the infinite merits of Christ alone can any of our fallen race ever acquire a right to the tree of life — a right to a place in the paradise of God : " I," said the Lord Jesus, " am the way, and the truth, and the life : no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John xiv. G). SIN BRINGS ITS OWN PUNISHMENT. 303 CHAPTER XIII. VEKILY THEKE IS A GOD THAT JUDGETH IN THE EARTH. " All this have I seen, and applied my heart unto every work that is done under the sun: there is a time wlierein one man ruleth over another to his own hurt. And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were orgotten in the city where they had so done. This is also vanity. " Beca\ise sentence against an evil work is not executed speetlily, therefore tlie heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner do evil an hmidred times, and his da>/s be prolonged, yet surely I know tluat it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him: but it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, tchich are as a shadow; becaiise he feareth not before God. "There is a vanity which is done upon the earth; that there be just laen, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked: again, there be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous. I said, that this also is vanity. Tlieii I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the siui, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry; for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life which God giveth him under the sun. " When I applied mine heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth: (for also th're is that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes: then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea farther, though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find U." — EccLES. VIII. 9-17. SOLOMON is again and again at pains to remind the readers of Ecclesiastes, tliat lie is not setting before them mere abstract reflections or speculative views, but rather tlie prac- tical results of his own observation and experience. It is that which he had himself seen, and heard, and handled, and tasted, which here, under the guidance of inspiration, he de- clares. With a special intimation to this effect, he introduces that series of statements on which we are now entering — " All this have I seen, and applied my heart unto every work that is done under tlie sun." He had laid himself out to o04f THERE IS A GOD THAT JUDGETH. gain a large and exact acquaintance with the state of things existing in the world around him. In joarticular, he had been a close and careful observer of human life; of the many vicissi- tudes to which it is liable, and of the causes which tell upon its happiness and welfare. He had been at pains, too, to trace out the course and issue of events, and to learn the lessons thereby taught, as to the working of Divine Providence, in rewarding good and punishing evil. Of all this, various illustrative examples Lave been already given, and here is another of the same kind : " There is a time [this also Solomon had seen] wherein one man ruleth over another to his own hurt. And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done : this also is vanity." There are few things of which men are more ambitious than of power. What toils have been endured — what dangers have been confronted — what crimes have been committed, in order to compass this coveted possession ! When the prophet Elisha told Hazael, with tears, through what scenes of treachery and blood that servant of Benhadad, the king of Syria, should yet make his way to the throne, he exclaimed, in seeming and perhaps real abhorrence and amazement, " Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" And yet, no sooner had the thought of gaining so envied a height got a hold of his mind, than he began to rush headlong on the very career which the prophet had described. " He departed," we are told, " from Elisha, and came to his master; who said to him, What said Elisha to thee ? And he answered, He told me that thou shouldest surely recover. And it came to pass on the morrow, that he took a thick cloth, and dipped it in water, and spread it on his face, so that he died : and Hazael reigned in his stead " (2 Kings viii. 13-15). It is a history which, though not always in the same dark and frightful form, has been often repeated in this fallen and selfish world. To restrain this guilty ambition, Solomon reminds those who are disposed to give way to it, that it is full of peril. now THE SLAVE IS AVENGED. 305 Success in such a pursuit may l)e far more fatal than faihire. It may, be to his own grievous loss and damage, that he ac- quires the power he has so eagerly sought. It is so always when the power is either in its own nature unlawful, or is un- lawfully used. Of this fact the system of slavery is still a con- spicuous and terril:)le proof. That system involves, indeed, many and most formidable evils to its unhappy victims — depriving them of liberty and independence — degrading them to the level of mere beasts of burden — treating them as goods and chattels, incapable of exercising any will, or possessing any rights of their own — subjecting them to every indignity and brutality which caprice or passion may dictate; and yet enormous and intolerable as these evils are, they are exceeded by those which the system entails upon the men by whom it is administered and maintained. They, most emphatically, rule over others to their own hurt. Their moral sense is blunted, and all the better feelings of their nature depraved by the sights which the system compels them to witness, and by the deeds which it requires, or at least tempts them to do. Even if the injury and oppres- sion which the system inflicts should produce no violent recoil the fear of it must often haunt the oppressor's mind, driving sleep from his couch, and peace from his breast. He may indeed live out the usual term of human life ; but in the demoralization of his own character, in the pollution of his habits of life, in the perversion of all his views of moral obligation and religious truth, he has sustained, meanwhile, an injury of the deadliest kind. Besides all which, there is a day coming when the slave shall be freed from his master, and when the master himself shall be made to know that verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth. '-'This," says the patriarch Job (chap, xxvii. 13- 17), "is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the heritage of oppressors, which they shall receive of the Almighty. If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword, and his offspring shall not be satisfied with bread. Those that remain of him shall be buried in death, and his widow shall not weep. Though he heap 306 THERE IS A GOD THAT JUDGETH. up silver as tlie dust, and prepare raiment as the clay : he may prepare it, but the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver ;" his very name and memory, that is, shall be an abhorrence among those who survive him. It will bring reproach and shame upon his lineage. The fabric of earthly greatness he had reared upon the ruin of other men's rights and hopes shall perish and come to nought. And as for himself, in that awful eternity into which he has gone, that most significant sentence shall have a terrible fulfilment: "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (Rom. xii. 13). What were the forms of oppressive ruling, which Solomon had seen, we are not informed. They seem, however, to have been of that kind of which the retribution is reserved for the world to come. The " storm," of which Job speaks, had not come, as in all ages it has frequently done, in the case of tyrannical rulers, "to hurl them from their places." Those of whom Solomon speaks were buried, and apparently with all the outward honours which usually attend on rank and power. Moreover, unjust and cruel as they were, they had maintained throughout their lives a profession of religion. "They had come and gone from the place of the holy." Some commentators, indeed, have thought that this expression refers to the seat of judgment, which ought, undoubtedly, to be the place of the holy, seeing that he who fills it does so as the minister of God, as adminis- tering a divine ordinance, and as being, therefore, bound by the most sacred obligations to act in strict accordance with the dictates of j ustice and truth. There is nothing, however, in Scripture language to sanction such an interpretation of the words in question. It is much more natural to understand the words in the more common and obvious sense of the house of God, the place where "the holy" — the saints or people of God — are wont to meet. Those oppressors whom Solomon saw had been accus- tomed to frequent that place of the tabernacles of the Most High, as oppressors often do still. They were like those of whom the Lord spake to Ezekiel, saying, "They come unto thee THE MEMORY OF THE WICKED SHALL ROT. 307 as tlie peoj^le cometli, and tliey sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them : for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness" (Ezek. xxxiii. 31). But what then! Their hypocrisy deceived neither men nor God. No sooner were they buried than " they were forgotten in the city where they had so done." The "mouth honour" which, while they lived, had been reluctantly yielded to them, came at once to an end. Relieved from their hated yoke, society was in haste to obliterate every trace of their presence and power. The laws they had made were abolished — the monuments tliey had reared, thrown down — the favourites they had encouraged, displaced and disowned — in a word, that whole state of things which it had been the aim of their selfish pride to establish, was swept away so soon as they were laid in the grave. Well might Solomon say, "This also is vanity ;" for what could more impressively proclaim the folly of such a career, than the fact of its being followed, so im- mediately, with such oblivion, and contempt, and shame. Nor was this a new thing under the sun. The father of Solo- mon had beheld it before him. " I have seen," said David, "'the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and lo ! he was not : yea I sought him, but he could not be found." Nor had David failed to mark the contrast between this and the opposite class of men — " The arms of the wicked shall be broken : but the Lord upholdeth the righteous. The Lord knoweth the days of the upriglit : and their inheritance shall be for ever. ... I have been young and now am old ; yet have I not seen the rigliteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread" (Psalm xxxvii. 35, 3G, 17, 18, 2u). Having described this case — the case of those who rule over others to their own hurt, — as a warning against ambition and tyranny, he subjoins this profound reflection, as suggested by it, that " Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." The men of whose case Solomon had spoken, 808 THERE IS A GOD THAT JUDGETH. iniquitous as their conduct was, "had nevertheless passed through life without meeting with anything like a sentence of retribution. Their schemes had prospered. They had gained the object on which their ambition was placed. On their side was power, and the subjects of their oppression had none to comfort them. AYhat was the inference to be drawn from these things ? Was God blind or indifferent to the conduct of men? Was His government of the world nothing better than a name ? The spectacle in question might seem to give some countenance to this repulsive conclusion. In contemplating scenes of the same kind, even David had been ready to let go his hold of the great principles which governed his life. " As for me," he says, "my feet were almost gone; my steps had well-nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death : but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men are : neither are they plagued like other men. Their pride compasseth them about as a chain ; violence covereth them as a garment. . . . Therefore His people return hither, and waters of a full cup are w^rung out to them. And they say. How doth God know, and is there knowledge in the Most High 1 " (Psalm Ixxiii. 2—G, 10, 11). Such are the dark thoughts to which, in their haste and impatience, even good men have occasionally been tempted to give way, when contemplating what seemed to be the impunity with which iniquity is sometimes committed. And if i^iety, when faith is weak, may be thus sorely troubled and perplexed by such events, it is easy to see how impiety may be emboldened by them to become more audacious in crime. But, adds Solomon, in order to expose these errors both of the one class and of the other, " Though a sinner do evil an hun- dred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before Him: but it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he pro- long his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God." The sinner may seem to have all the advantage THE END OF THE UPRIGHT IS PEACE. 300 upon liis side. Fortune smiles on him, while it frowns upon the man of conscientious principle and piety. The one has a favouring breeze and a flowing tide, which carry liim in every enterprise prosperously on to land ; while baffling winds and an ebbing sea are continually drawing or driving the other back into the deep. But though the sinner may thus grow gray in an un- checked career of successful wickedness, the God-fearing man shall have the better part, notwithstanding, in the end. " Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright : for the end of that man is peace." " The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord : and He delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast dow^n : for the Lord iipholdeth him with His hand" (Psalm xxxvii. 23, 24). Be his lot in this life what it may as to outward things, he can say with the Psalmist, " Thou (Lord) hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased" (Psalm iv. 7). "His rejoiciug," like that of Paul, " is this, the testimony of his con- science, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God^ he has had his conversation in this world" (2 Cor. i. 12). And when this fleeting life shall at length have come to an end — when that day of death previously spoken of shall arrive — a day beyond which, not for one moment, can the wicked man's earthly existence be prolonged — then these words of Solomon shall have all their momentous meaning fully explained. Then it will appear how infinitely preferable it is to sufier affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. To the prosperous wicked man it shall then be siiid, with awful emphasis, as to the rich man of the parable of our Lord, " Eemember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things : but now he is com- forted, and thou art tormented" (Luke xvi. 2G). "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours ; and their works do follow them" (Be v. xiv. 13). 310 THERE IS A GOD THAT JUDGETH. The statement contained in the 14th verse appears, at first sight, to agree very ill with the views laid down in the fore- going context. Solomon had been celebrating wisdom. He had been praising it as man's best jiossession, and as his only sure guide. He had been saying substantially this, that to follow its dictates was to be safe and happy — that to despise it was to be inevitably involved in danger and ruin. But can this be true if it turns out to be the fact, that in reality it some- times proves worse with the disciples of wisdom than with those of folly? — that good men are found, not unfrequently, to be subject to great adversities, while bad men are seen coming to honour? — that integrity and piety are visited with loss and suffering, while irreligion and ungodliness bask in the sunshine of prosperity ? It may seem hard to reconcile such a state of things with what Solomon had been setting forth as to the excellence of wisdom, and the unspeakable advantage of acting upon its high and holy principles. And yet it could not be denied that the state of things in question did often arise. Solomon frankly confesses this to be the case. He admits that "there be just men, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked;" and again, "that there be wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous." In other words, there be good men that meet with the treatment of evil-doers, and bad men that meet with the treatment of well- doers. But while the royal Preacher concedes the fact, he is ([uite prepared to dispute the inference, that wisdom is on that account one wliit the less deserving of all the commendation he had been bestowing upon it. To the grounds on which he does dispute and set aside that inference, we shall come in due time. But first let us look in the face, as Solomon himself does, the apparently adverse fact itself He evidently brings it in as an objection, which an opponent of the great doctrine laid down in the preceding verses might start, and which he felt it needful, therefore, both to anticipate and to answer. In introducing it, as he does, with these words, " There is a vanity which is done A PLAUSIBLE OBJECTION*. 311 upon the eartli," it may, perliap.s, be open to question wliether he is simply using tlie language of the supposed objector, or is here actually expressing his own mind. Those who consider the language to be that of the objector, understand it in one sense; while those who consider it to express Solomon's own mind, understand it in another. If it be the objector who speaks, he means, of course, that the thing he is about to specify stamps vanity upon that wisdom which Solomon had so highly praised. On this supposition, it is as if the objector had said to him — There is a thing done upon the earth which makes a fool of your boasted wisdom. You say that 'whoso keepeth the com- mandment shall feel no evil thing;' 'that it shall be well with them that fear God, but that it shall not be well with the wicked.' But how, then, does it come to pass that 'there be just men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; and wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous?' Do not such facts ^vrite vanity upon that wisdom which you have been at so much pains to commend 1 If, on the other hand, it be Solomon that speaks — if it be he himself who is here pronouncing the facts so specified to be " a vanity" — the expression must be taken, not as a reproach attempted to be cast upon wisdom, but only as a further illus- tration of what he has all along been insisting on, that it is folly for any man to seek his portion in the present world. If tem- poral prosperity be so uncertain that virtue itself cannot be sure of attaining to it, why should men set their hearts upon it 1 Why should they stake their happiness on a thing so fickle and variable as worldly fortune 1 Though there is certainly some difficulty in choosing between these alternative views, I am inclined to regard the verse as containing, from the very outset, the language of the supposed objector; and, therefore, to accept the term vanity in this case as an intended reproach cast by him in the face of wisdom. Nor can there be any doubt that it does seem, when cursorily 312 THERE IS A GOD THAT JUDGETH. considered, to exhibit wisdom iu the light of vanity — that the man who has most of it should meet with the hardest fate, and he who has least of it with that fate which is most prosperous and pleasant. Look at Joseph in the dungeon. He has been a disciple of heavenly wisdom. He has resisted a strong temptation to sin, and it has happened to him according to the work of the wicked. As the immediate fruit and consequence of taking counsel from wisdom, he is overwhelmed with calumny — he is loaded with reproach and shame — his prospects of advancement in life are utterly blasted — he is left to languish in his prison, either forgotten or despised. Look at Paul bruised and bleeding, where he has been all but stoned to death at the gates of Lystra, or writhing under the cruel and igno- minious scourge at Philippi, or dragged through the streets and beaten by the infuriated populace at Jerusalem. He, too, has been an assiduous follower of wisdom, and this is his reward. Or, once more, to take a far more illustrious example than either of these — look at Him who was the very impersonation and living embodiment of wisdom. Was He not all His life long a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief ? \Yas He not despised and rejected of men ? And did He not terminate His earthly career upon a malefactor's cross 1 It is, then, no mere fancy, no unreal extravagance, to say that "there be just men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked." It happened in Scripture times. It happened often, at a later day, in our own land, as many a martyr's grave, and many a gloomy prison, and many a bloody scaffold could tell. It happens to this hour all over the world ; for never has that saying lacked many proofs to confirm its tnith — " Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." Nor has the other and opposite side of that strange picture which this 14th verse exhibits, ever wanted its counterpart in actual life. Hazael murders his master, and gets a throne by the deed. Judas betrays the innocent blood, and he is rewarded with A PLAUSIBLE OBJECTION. 313 thirty pieces of silver. The uuscrupulous trader defrauds liis cus- tomers, and grows rich by his dishonest gains. Honours pass over the head of the upright Mordecai, who has saved the king's life, and liglit upon that of the wicked Haman. In short, it is undeniable that there are, and always have been, "wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous." And here it may be observed, that what goes to corroborate the supposition that it is not Solomon, but the' objector who pro- nounced such a state of things to be vanity, is, that now, — at the close of the verse, — Solomon intimates that at one time he had himself been disposed to view the matter in the same light. " I said, that this also is vanity." The objector says it still; and once I said it too. In the days of my folly I gave in to the notion that it was a vain thing to follow that self-denying course which wisdom prescribes. I was disposed to plead such facts as those which the objector has adduced, as furnishing, if not a solid argument, at least a very plausible one, for making light of wisdom — for casting oflf the restraints which it imposes, and for adopting a more easy-going and self-indulgent rule. In that mood of mind I gave my voice for a life of pleasure. " Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry : for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun." The reference in these words appears to be to that part of his career alluded to in the close of the first chapter of Ecclesiastes and in the commencement of the second. Disgusted with the utter failure of his attempts to rectify the seeming disorders of Providence — to make that straight which he found crooked, and to supply that which he found to be awanting — he ran headlong into a career of gaiety and dissipation. Why should he be virtuous and self-denied if this was all that was to come of it — that vice was still often seen to prosper, and virtue to be the losing side of the great game of life ? He recalls that state of mind now. It helps him to understand what the objector 20 o14j there is a god that judgeth. means when he disparages wisdom, and holds up the facts just noticed as stamping it with vanity. But Solomon has got more and better light upon the subject since that dark and disastrous period of his history. He has been brought, by that very wisdom which the objector would fain depreciate, to take deeper and larger views of man's condition and destiny than those on which the objector proceeds. He had come to be fully convinced that a life of so-called pleasure is a life of real unhap- piness. Experience had taught him to say — " of laughter. It is mad : and of mirth, What doeth it ? " It had shown him that there were ten thousand causes at work which the lover of this world's pleasures could neither foresee nor prevent, and by which, at any moment, either the portion he had chosen might be snatched out of his hands, or its possessor be utterly disabled for enjoying it. Solomon does not mean, indeed, to make no account at all of the good things of this life. Already, in preceding chapters, he had pointed out the right use to make of them, and had described the kind and amount of enjoyment which they are fitted and designed to afibrd. When men use this world as not abusing it — when they accept what they receive of it with cheerful and thankful hearts — when they turn it to account in the way of providing for their own personal and domestic comfort, and in promoting the good of others, they are really getting all out of it which it was ever meant to impart. But what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? Time is but the threshold of eternity. A man's true life consisteth not in the abundance of the earthly things which he possesseth : God's favour is life, and His loving-kindness is better than life; and therefore, he only whose estimate of the worth of things takes cognizance of man's relation to God, and to the world to come, is truly wise. So estimated, even such apparently stumbling facts as those the objector had specified, cease to be a source of perplexity. Seen in the light of that THE OBJECTION ANSWERED. 815 great and nota1)le day which is to try every man's work of what sort it is, and to deal with it accordingly, it will assuredly be found that the suffering just man, witli whom, in this present fleeting earthly scene, it happened according to the work of the wicked, has, after all, made a far wiser and happier choice tlian the prosperous wicked man, to whom, for a brief hour, it had happened according to the work of the righteous. Things and men shall then be all put in their own proper place; and then shall Solomon's previous saying be amply vindicated, that '• though a sinner do evil an hundred times" — do it, that is, an hundred times with impunity — " and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, wliich fear before Him: but it shall not be well with the wicked. " Solomon would have it known that he had been at great pains to come at the truth on this momentous subject. Those perplexing events tc which the objector alluded had not escaped his notice; on the contrary, he had given the whole energies of his powerful and capacious mind to the solution of the diflficul- ties which they involved. He had sought earnestly " to know wisdom " — to discover, that is, what wisdom had to say regarding such things. He had made the condition and character of men in this world a matter of deep and thoughtful study; he had spared no pains "to see the business that is done upon the earth." The parenthetical sentence thrown in at the close of the 16th verse has been generally understood by commentators to refer to what Solomon had seen in prosecuting his survey of human life; and to be intended to describe that .ceaseless toil and wakeful anxiety which is the lot in this world of not a few. It may be so ; though one is at a loss to jDerceive the relevancy of such a statement to the matter in hand. A more simple and natural way of exj^laining the words in question would appear to be this — to take them as descriptive of the intense solicitude and untiring assiduity with which Solomon himself had pursued the inquiries of which he had just been speaking. The unreflect- ing multitude, whose minds are never exercised on such questions :>16 THERE IS A GOD THAT JUDGETH. at all, have no conception of the amount of both time and effort which it costs to master them. They do not know, though it is a fact, that there are men who, in handling such profound problems as the mysteries of Divine Providence, in connection with the state and prospects of the human race, present, " neither day nor night see sleep with their eyes." So understood, the paren- thesis falls easily and without constraint into the verse to which it belongs — illustrating, as it does, both the sincerity and the strength of purpose with which he had given himself to search out the truth in regard to such difficulties as the objector had proposed. He had sacrificed even his natural rest in trying to learn what wisdom's decision might be regarding these deep things ; and what was the result ? It was twofold. First, as he distinctly intimates in the 17th verse, he had been brought to the conclusion that there was a mystery about the existing condition of things which he was unable to penetrate — that the subject had a length and breadth, a height and depth, that baffled all his powers. " Then I beheld," he says, " all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun : because though a man labour to seek it out, "he shall not find it ; though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it." In thus saying that a " man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun," and that even '' a wise man shall not be able to find it," we cannot suppose that he is merely giving utterance to the obvious truism that man's powers of observation are limited, and that it is impossible for him to make himself acquainted with every particular of human life and with every member of the human family. Ten thousand things are continually going on, even at our very doors, of which we never do know, nor can know anything. Only Omniscience and Omnipresence can lay bare the tangled and complicated labyrinth of this whole world's affairs. It was surely no such familiar fact as this that Solomon de- signed, in this 17th verse, and with so much emphasis, to aimounce. No. But what he wished to make known was rather GODS WAY IS OFTEN IN THE DEEP. 317 tlie liumbliug truth that, even in those very events with which we are most flimiliar, Ave meet with difficulties which we cannot resolve. Merc human reason could do nothing to explain the origin or the existence, under the government of an allwise, almighty, and infinitely righteous God, of a state of things in which it should ever happen to just men to be treated accord- ing to the deserts of the wicked, or to wicked men to be treated according to the deserts of the righteous. There is no human philosophy that could ever have thrown one ray of true and satisfying light on an anomaly so great. Even divine revelation itself, though it tells us how it came to pass — though it tells us, in other words, how man fell from his original righteousness, and how the world became that strangely disordered scene which we actually see before us, — it does not tell loJiy this was permitted. That it was permitted for God's glory, we do indeed confidently infer and unhesitatingly believe, because that is and must be the grand final cause of all things. But still, as regards the principle that is to harmonize the existence of sin and misery in God's universe with the infinite perfections of His own being, it is altogether hidden from us — it is far above and beyond the grasp, in at least its present enfeebled condition, of any human mind. Nay, on a far lower level than that of" so high and unsearch- able a mystery as the origin of evil, there are many things through which we cannot see, and which mock all our endeavours to find out why they are so. The daily providence of God is full of mystery. Events fall out oftentimes in a way the very opposite of that which our views of what the occasion required would have led us to anticipate. We see young men, full of promise, cut ofi" at the very outset of a career of usefulness, while mere cumberers of the ground are allowed to live on to gray hairs. We see truth, even the very truth that alone makes wise unto salvation, put down, and its disciples silenced by the ruthless hand of despotic power ; while soul-destroying error is exalted to influence and honour in its stead. We see the godly man ceasing and the faithful failing from the earth. 818 THERE IS A GOD THAT JUDGETH. while the wicked flourish and spread "like a green bay tree." Contemplating such providences as these, we feel how true it is that God's ways are past finding out — that His ways are not our ways, neither His thoughts our thoughts. The deep dark- ness which wraps them round we are not able to penetrate. " Yea, though even a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it." He has no resource but to fall back on such a reflection as this, that what we know not now w^e shall know hereafter. I^or is it unimportant that we should remember and realize the fact which Solomon, in this 17th verse, sets before us. It is good and necessary that we should learn humbly and heartily to acquiesce in that state of dependence and comparative ignorance in which we have been placed; and to be contented oftentimes with knowing no more than this, that the Lord reigneth. There is, let us be assured, a good and sufficient reason for every- thing He has ordained, however hidden it may be from us. The Psalmist meekly recognized this fundamental truth when, under a sore calamity that had befallen him, he said, "I was dumb, because thou didst it." Had it come from the hand of man, or in so far as man had to do with it, he might have had some complaint to make, or reason to urge, against it ; but the thought that the only wise and all-gracious God had appointed it, silenced every murmur and answered every objection. To those who would act otherwise in a like position, the Lord utters this high command, "Be still, and know that I am God." But the result announced in the 17th verse is not all tliat Solomon discovered as the fruit of his earnest desire and effort to know wisdom. While it taught him that in God's dealings with men in this world there are mysteries which the human mind cannot fathom, it taught him another and a much more consoling truth — that God is never unmindful of His people — that His eye is upon them continually — and that all things concerning them will come right in the end. " For all this I considered in my heart," he goes on to say in the 1st verse of RIGHT SHALL PREVAIL AT LAST. 319 cliapter ix., " even to declare all this, that the righteous, and tlie wise, and their works, are in the hand of God." It may a])pear to careless onlookers — and sometimes, perhaps, when faith is weak, even to God's people themselves — that He has forgotten themj but never was there a more groundless thought. ''Why- say est thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Hast thou not known 1 hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?" (Isaiah xl. 27, 28). It is here that Solomon finds the true answer to the objector s plea for undervaluing heavenly wisdom. Be it, as the objector says, that "there be just men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked;" be it, in other words, that those who take divine wisdom for their guide find oftentimes that the path by Avhich it leads them is rough and toilsome — that it brings them not unfrequently to worldly loss and trouble — let them not on that account be dissuaded from following it. Those who take a difierent way — those who walk according to the course of this world — who seek their own pleasure, their own ease, their own self-indulgence — may seem, for a time, to fare all the better for doing so. The advantage may appear to be all on their side. They laugh, while the followers of wisdom weep. They are clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptu- ously every day ; while the others, it may be, like Lazarus, are left to lie in unpitied poverty at the gate. Of them all men speak well ; the world praises and honours them : while the names of wisdom's children are cast out as evil. Nevertheless, there is a day coming when all this shall be changed. Let this present evil world treat the righteous and the wise with what indignity and injustice it may, they and their works are in the hand of God, and He shall yet bring forth their righteousness as the light, and their judgment as the noonday. He will redress all their wrongs, and abundantly compensate them for all their sufferings; for their light affliction, which is but for a momeut, 320 THERE IS A GOD THAT JUDGETH. will be found, in the long run, to have been working for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. All this is evidently implied in saying of the righteous and the wise that they and their works "are in the hand of God." Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right 1 He cannot be deceived by any amount of misrepresentation and calumny as to their true character. If all the world should have com- bined to hunt them down, and to cover them with reproach and shame, He will rescue them from even the lowest depths into which their enemies may have degraded them ; for He raiseth the poor out of the dunghill and setteth him among princes. "He shall judge the poor of the people, He shall save the chil- dren of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. . . . He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence : and precious shall their blood be in His sight " (Psalm Ixxii.) And is not this enough to reconcile the child of God to any and every trial of his faith and patience he may be called in this life to endure 1 Here is a support and a solace of which no earthly adversity can possibly deprive him — that he and his works are in the hands of God. Knowing and believing this, he may well say, with Paul, when the world misjudges and wrongs him — For me it is a very small thing to be judged of you or of man's judgment; He that judgeth me is the Lord. Having this for his rejoicing, even the testimony of his conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not by fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, he has his conversation in the world — he en- dures as seeing Him who is invisible. How different is the case of him who dare not appeal to God at all ! What avails the success that may have attended his worldly schemes? What avails it that by his lax morality and latitudinarian principles he may have escaped the inconveniences, losses, or sufferings in which men who walk by conscience and Scripture truth often find themselves involved 1 What though the unworthy arts by which he has paved his way to fortune — the selfishness, the dishonesty, the flattery, the oppression he has WHO ARE THE RIGHTEOUS AND TIIK WISM. 321 practised, in order to overreach others, and to aggrandize him- self, — have never been exposed, and that he has escaped, in conse- quence, the shame and dishonour he deserved 1 Wliat tliough, on the contrary, the world may be casting itself at liis feet, and crying when he speaks, as did the venal multitude before Herod, " It is the voice of a god, and not of a man." What avails all this, when conscience whispers with its still small voice, that he is a guilty and unpardoned sinner 1 or when death stares him in the face, and summons him to a judgment-seat where there is no respect of persons, and where every man shall receive the due reward of his deeds'? The thought, so precious to the righteous and the wise, that they and their works are in the hand of God, is to him pregnant with terror and dismay. In this life he may have received his good things, but in the world to come he can- not but foresee that there are none but evil things in store. Let us, then, be admonished to take Solomon's counsel, and whatever it may cost, to cast in our lot with the righteous and the wise. Better, infinitely better is it, to suffer afliiction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. And who are the righteous, and who are the wise ? Not those who go about to establish their own rif^hteousness — not those who are wise in their own conceit. The righteous, who are in God's hand, and whom He keeps until the coming of His king- dom, are those who are found before Him, not having their own righteousness, which is of the law, and which is as filthy rags, but having the righteousness of Christ, even the righteousness which is of God and by faith. The wise, who are in God's hand, and whose works He loves, are those whom He Himself, by his Word and Spirit, has made wise unto salvation; who have chosen the good partj and are walking in the way of the divine commandments. When this world, with all its troubles and sorrows, its wrongs and injuries, shall have come to an end, then shall they that be wise shine as the brightness of the fir- mament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever ! 322 ALL THINGS COME ALIKE TO ALL. CHAPTER XIV. THE APPARENT INDIFFERENCE OF PROVIDENCE TO THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE EVIL AND THE GOOD, AND THE ANSWER TO THIS DIFFICULTY. " For all this I considered in my heart, even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred hy all tliat is before them. All tilings come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good, and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacriliceth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath. This is an evil among all things that are done xmder the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea also, the heart of the sons of men is fuU of evU, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead. For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun. " Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sim, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour wliich thou takest vuider tlie sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy miglit; for thei-e is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the gi-ave, whither thou goest." — Eccles. ix. 1-10. IN the close of the preceding chapter, Solomon was deal- ing with a certain objection that might be urged against that heavenly wisdom he had been so greatly commending. Heavenly wisdom enjoins men to be pious and holy — to fear God and to keep His commandments. "But what is to be gained by following this doctrine," asks the sceptical oppon- ent, "if 'there be just men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked,' and if ' there be wicked men, to THIS DIFFICULTY CONSIDERED. ^122 ■whom it liappeneth according to tlie work of tlie rigliteous?'" That the state of things whicli these words describe is only too common in this fallen world, no intelligent and impartial observer of human history can possibly deny. Solomon admits that it is so, but disputes the inference wliich the objector would deduce from it. The circumstance that good men fre- quently suffer for their goodness in this present life, and that bad men often prosper in their wickedness, is no j^roof that in the long run it shall either be well with the wicked, or ill with them that fear God. To think so, is to reason in a very shallow and short-sighted way. Solomon had one great fact to set over against such reasoning that was quite enough to nullify it all ; and the fact was this, " that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God." The Lord i-eigneth : let that suffice. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do that which is right 1 Wisdom — that is, the wisdom Solomon had been celebrating — is but another name for the mind and will of God, and He cannot contradict Himself. He cannot and will not fail to condemn and punish what He hates and forbids; and to approve and reward what He loves and com- mends. Be it, therefore, that the perj^lexities of the existing condition of things are often such as even Solomon himself could not solve, here is the short and decisive answer Avith which the disciple of wisdom may fearlessly face even the subtlest of her foes. They may throw these perplexities in his way, to make him stumble — they may taunt him with them as casting ridicule on his godly and self-denying career ; but none of these things move him. What he knows not now he shall know hereafter ; and, meanwhile, he knows this, that in the hands of Him whose mercy is in the heavens, and whose fliithfulness reacheth unto the clouds, whose righteousness is like the mountains, and whose judgments are a great deep, his interests are safe. Let it be with' him outwardly in this world as it may — let him meet from the hands of his fellowmen with what wrongs and cruelty they may please to inflict — they cannot :y2i ALL THINGS COME ALIKE TO ALL. rob Lim of the testimony of a good conscience, — of the blessed- ness of the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose mind is stayed upon God. The first thing that must strike the thoughtful reader of the passage at present before us, is, that Solomon is in no haste to be done with the objector's difficulty. To refuse to see difficulties, or to slur them over with a slight and passing notice, is the com- mon artifice of special pleaders; but one who has truth upon his side, and especially one who, like Solomon, has upon his side truth taught, sustained, and shielded by inspiration, is not afraid to look in the face, and to search to the bottom, whatever can be urged against it. Instead, therefore, of dropping this difficulty, arising out of the seeming want of any plan or principle in the events which we see falling out in the world around us, he returns to it. He has already shown that it makes nothing against the course of life he is pleading for; but he will show, before he leaves it, that it does make very much against that opposite and evil course which the enemies of heavenly wisdom would fain have men to pursue. He has shown that the trials, to which the sufferings of this present time subject the faith and patience of the righteous, must and shall issue in ultimate good. But he will now show, on the other hand, that the earthly good things which the wicked may get here, are only serving to lure them on to misery and woe hereafter. In returning, as he now does, to the objector's difficulty, Solomon puts it as broadly as the objector himself could desire. Even he could not venture to say that fortune favours the wicked alone, and that upon the righteous temporal prosperity never shines. The very utmost length to which the events of human life and the facts of human history could be represented as going on the objectors side, is exactly as Solomon states it; viz., this lengt.h, that such are the seeming contrarieties of jDro- vidence in its dealings with men, that " no man knoweth either love or hatred" — knoweth, that is, whom providence loves or whom providence hates — " by all that is before them." When THE FACT COMPLAINED OF IS ADMITTED. .^25 we look, iudeed, at one class of cases only — wlieii we see vile men high in place and power, while good men are persecuted and despised — when we see, for example, the control of a kingdom committed to such a man as the sensual and selfish Herod, and a John the Baptist losing his head for daring to speak the truth, — we might be tempted to conclude that, in so far at least as this world is concerned, goodness is altogether on the losing side. But this dark picture has sometimes, at least, a bright reverse. The pious, generous, patriotic son of Jesse, though long and cruelly hunted like a partridge upon the mountains, is seen at length sitting on his persecutor's throne. The weeping and heart-broken youth, whom his envious brethren have sold for a slave, emerges at length from his dungeon and his chains, and rises to influence and honour, while those who wronged him bow in submission at his feet. Putting the one class of cases alongside of the other, the most that could be made of them, in the way of opposition to Solomon's argument, would be this — to say that the man who disregarded Solomon's counsel, and who refused to take wisdom for his guide, was as likely to fare well in this world as he who followed a quite contrary course. The very utmost, therefore, that the objector can pos- sibly ask for his view of that state of things which providence exhibits, is conceded by Solomon, when, in speaking of it, he makes use of such words as these — " All things come alike to all : there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked ; to the good, and to the clean, and to the unclean ; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not : as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath." Solomon makes these admissions because, in a certain sense, and within certain limits, they are undeniably true. " There is very often one event in the affairs of time " to the righteous and to the wicked." They are equally partakers of the com- mon ills and of the common earthly solaces of human life; they have both of them their domestic bereavements and their S26 ALL THINGS COME ALIKE TO ALL. domestic comforts — their alternations of prosperity and adver- sity — of health and sickness, of joy and grief. "The good and the clean" — those, that is, who love and practise goodness, and who are, through grace, of a pure heart- — cannot well be distinguished, by the providences that befall them, from those that " are unclean," who are living in their natural state of moral and spiritual defilement. The one class may be next door neighbours to the other ; and the passer by, looking merely at theii' worldly circumstances, might find it utterly impossible to distinguisli the one from the other. Of two men whom we may meet any day in the street, it may be true that the one "sacrificeth" and that the other "sacrificeth not" — that the one, in other words, as is plainly implied in this Old Testament language, is a man who is strict and conscientious in attending to his religious duties, in waiting on the ordinances of the gospel, in secret and domestic prayer, in devoting a stated portion of his worldly substance to the service of God : it may be true that the one is such a man as this, and that the other is a man who makes little or no account of religion at all — who seldom apj)ears in the place of public worship, is a total stranger to the exercises of personal devotion, and knows not what it is to make any sacrifice whatever of either time, labour, or money for the sake of God's cause. It may be true that such and so opposite, in these important respects, are the two men in question ; and yet there may be nothing in the position and course of their tem- poral affairs to indicate this difference. The irreligious man's business may be as prosperous as that of the man of God ; and the stream of life, so far as the course of outward events can throw any light upon the question, may be flowing as smoothly in the one case as in the other. In short, "as is the ofood, so is the sinner ; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath." In this life Providence does neither, by a visible mark, so bless the one nor so brand the other, as to make any broad and I)ali)a]jle distinction between them. Solomon admits all this, because, as has been already said, in a THE OBJECTION QUALIFIED. 327 certain sense and within certain limits, it is all undeniably time. It is not true, however, absolutely and without qualification. For even as regards man's temporal concerns and his present state of being, there is, after all, very much to distinguish the righteous from the wicked; and to show that the providence of God is on the side of the one and is not on the side of the other. Godliness is profitable to all things, and has promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come. Godliness commands respect ; it inspires confidence ; it disarms opposition by its forbearance and kindness ; it gains friends by its fidelity and truth. Its tendency, therefore, when accompanied with discretion and diligence, is undoubtedly to promote even the temporal interests of its possessor; and not more certain is it, on the other hand, that ungodliness has a tendency of the opposite kind. The lax morality which is its common accompaniment begets distrust ; its selfishness alienates sympathy, and often defeats its o^vn ends. It has, and can have, no blessing from Him who loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity. Again, godliness is promotive of health. The temperance which it teaches, the activity which it prompts and sustains, and, above all, the inward peace with which it fills the soul, are all most favourable to that sound state of body on which so much of human comfort in this life depends. Ungodliness, on the con- trary, is the malaria that spreads and the fire that feeds disease. The vices which are its usual associates — the loose living, the sensual indulgence, the irregular habits which so often charac- terize an ungodly life, — carry, for the most part, their own punishment along with them. They may be sweet in the mouth, but in the belly they are bitter. These, and fiicts like these, are amply sufficient to show that when it is said, "All things come alike to all, and that there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked," we must confine the meaning of these expressions within certain limits. Even here, in this present world, there is quite enough continually taking place, under the providence of God, to prove to the thoughtful and 328 ALL THINGS COME ALIKE TO ALL. spiritual mind that '-He is angry with the wicked every day," and that "the way of transgressors is hard;" and also to prove that " wisdom's ways are pleasantness, and that her paths are peace," But still it remains true that, taking things in the gross, and as they appear to the common eye, the general statement we have been considering holds good. To a large extent, good and evil are neither discriminated nor dealt with, on this side the grave, in such a way as to mark the greatness of the difference •which subsists between them, or of the distance by which they are really divided in the sight and estimation of God. It might appear to the superficial observer as if, oftentimes. Providence regarded them with an equal eye. Nor do we need to tell any enlightened reader of the Word of Grod why this is so. This life is not the last act in the great drama of human history. It is not here and now that men are receiving the due reward of their deeds. After that curtain shall have fallen that is destined to cover up and close the latest of the shifting scenes of time, it will rise once more to bring into view a vaster, grander, and more awful stage than time ever displayed. Of all the countless actors who ever strutted their brief hour on the stage of time, not one shall be absent on that great and notable day that is to usher in eternity. Multitudinous as the leaves of the forest, or as the grains of sand on the sea-shore, the successive generations of the human family, from Adam to the latest born of his race, shall be gatliered together in one mighty throng. Men of every tribe and tongue, of every age and nation shall be there. Abel will be there, the first martyr for the truth of God ; and there also will be Cain, with the foul stain of his brother's blood still fresh upon his hands. Enoch will be there, and the ungodly genera- tion by whom his prophecy was despised. Noah will be there, and all that antediluvian world of the ungodly for whom the long-suff'ering patience of God waited one hundred and twenty years, imtil the flood came and took them all away. Moses will l»e there, and Pharaoh, who defied the God that sent him. THE FINAL ISSUE. 829 Joshua will be there, and the Canaanites, whose aboiniuations doomed them to his exterminating aword. The prophets and holy men of ancient Israel will be there, and there also will be the people by whom they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword. Above all, the Son of man will be there and there also will be all of every creed and clime who have taken part against him — who have rejected the Holy One and the Just, and who have been crucifying to themselves the Son of God. Then, at last, the disorder and confusion that now reign on earth shall have a full and final end. Then and there shall cease for ever that state of things in reference to which it was said, in the words before us. that " all things come alike to all," and that "there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked." Crowded, confused, commingled as the precious may be with the vile, when the whole human race shall be assembled on that day of the resurrection from the dead. He that sitteth upon the great white throne shall separate them as easily and as unerringly, one from another, as the shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And then shall wisdom be justified of all her children ; for then shall these words of Solomon be amply vindicated, that " it shall be well with them that fear God," but that "it shall not be well with the wicked." All this that has now been briefly sketched is incessantly draw- ing on, and Solomon is about, ere long, to speak of it. It is im- portant and necessary, however, for the purposes of his argument, that he should first direct attention to the too common effect which is produced upon men by the apparent impunity with which they are allowed, in this present world, to indulge in sin. The fact that Providence seems to take so little account of how men live, — seems to be as favourable often to the wicked as to the righteous, to the evil as to tlie good, — this fact the sup- posed objector had urged as a reason for disregarding the dic- tates of heavenly wisdom, and for refusing to lead that pure, and holy, and self-crucifying life which it requires of all its followers. 21 830 ALL THINGS COME ALIKE TO ALL. But it is not because God is indifferent as to whether men be righteous or wicked that He makes so little distinction outwardly between the one class and the other in this present world : it is because He will have it, in this way, tested and put to the proof whether men be prejmred to love and follow righteousness for its own sake, and for His sake, apart from any reward or privilege which it may ultimately carry in its train. This is another and a more special reason for God's method of dealing with men in this present world, additional to that great general reason already set forth — that the present life is not the period of judgment and retribution, but the season of preparation for these great and final developments of the moral government of God. In the view of that great day of accounts, God lets men, so to speak, alone, to see whether or not they will obey Him. He is kind even to the unthankful and the evil. But men, blinded by sin, take encouragement from His goodness, to continue in their wickedness. Because sentence against their evil work is not exe- cuted speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Solomon had made this pregnant obser- vation in the preceding chapter; and here he substantially repeats it in a slightly different form. In doing so he begins by laying down the position that " this is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all." It was no benefit, no advantage, even to the wicked themselves, that they were permitted to sin with comparative impunity : it was serving only to foster that tendency to evil which was already too strong ; for, as Solomon goes on to say, " the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live." Out of the heart, said He who needed not that any should testify to Him of man, because He knew what was in man — out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, wickedness, covetousness, an evil eye, pride, blas- phemy, foolishness. Encouraged and emboldened by the divine forbearance, these guilty desires are allowed to have their own THE PLACE OF THE DEAD. 331 way, and the evil nature of ungodly men thus grows into a madness which huri-ies them on from one iniquity to another, till, jjerhaps, it has brought their earthly career prematurely to an end ; and " after that they go to the dead." Here, then, is the issue and landing-place of such a life — a life by which the dictates of heavenly wisdom are set at nought. Let the objector with whom Solomon has been dealing consider this fact ; let him look a little way before him, and see what is to be the end of those who may think it a sufficient reason for refusing to fear God and to follow holiness, that such a life is as likely to bring them into trouble as a' life of selfishness and sin. If they will rather take their own way, in order to have their ease, and pleasure, and self-indulgence, rather than take God's way, at the expense of bearing the cross — which is the necessary accompani- ment of His service — let them, at least, sit down and count the cost. Let it be granted that, as regards the things of this world, the righteous are to be no better, perhaps even worse, than the wicked; let it be granted that the righteous, all along, will have to row against both wind and tide, while the wicked or worldly will go with the stream ; let it be granted that the wisdom Solomon has been commending to their choice will often bring them to loss and suffering, which, by casting that wisdom aside, they may easily escape ; let all this be granted — but let it also be borne in mind that the question has another side. This is the view of the question which time exhibits. Eternity will present it in a totally different light. When they go to the dead, both the righteous and the wicked shall enter on a new and totally different state of things. Death shall bring equally to an end the trials and afflictions of the people of God, and those pleasures of sin which, for a season, tlie wicked have enjoyed. Beyond death there is glory, honour, and immortality for the one ; shame and everlasting contempt for the other. Evidently, it is this dark and dreadful prospect of a lost eter- nity which Solomon here intends to place before the wicked. If death were, indeed, an eternal sleep ; if it were not true that 832 ALL THINGS COME ALIKE TO ALL. after death is the judgment, then indeed might the objector's argument have some apparent force. To get through so brief and transient a career as man's threescore and ten, or even four- score years, — if that were the whole of it, — in the way that pro- mised to give least trouble and to bring most ease and joleasure, might seem to be a high enough aim for so inferior and ephe- meral an existence. But if man's short life on earth be but the beojinnino; of an existence that is to last for ever — if it be but the preparation for, and the pathway to the tribunal of our Sovereign Judge — if it be a seed-time from which is to spring either tlie j^recious wheat that shall be gathered into the Lord's garner, or the chaff which the Great Husbandman shall burn with unquenchable fire — if these things be so, what folly, what madness is it either to grudge any service or sacrifice that may- be needful to make us meet for heaven; or to gain the ease, the honours, the wealth, or the pleasures of the world, at the expense of losing our souls ! To show that these momentous and awful considerations are what Solomon is really pointing at in the passage before us, he goes on, in the oth and 6th verses, to contrast the living with the dead, and to contrast them in a way that could have no fit and proper meaning, or bearing upon his argument, apart from those great interests that lie beyond the grave. " For," he continues, " to him that is joined to all the living there is hope." Hope of what? Not hope of escaping death; for he says, a little further on, " the living know that they shall die." But to the living there is still hope of escaping the doom to which the wicked, who have already gone to the place of the dead, are unchangeably and eternally consigned. And because of this vital and all-important distinction, the very poorest, mean- est, most wretched among living men, occupies an infinitely ' more enviable position than the mightiest monarch who, liaving walked according to the course of this world, and having re- ceived his good things — the things he chose as his portion on earth — has at length been summoned away to receive his evil TO THE LIVING THERE IS HOPE. 333 tilings in eternity. "The living dog is better than the dead lion." Be it that the living man, in the case supposed, were among the lowest and most degraded of his fellows, — the very image and impersonation of that which the term dog would call up to an oriental, and especially to an Hebrew mind, — 'he is still within the reach of divine mercy. His heart, hard and stony as it is, may still be softened into penitence : his mind, blinded though it be by the deceitfulness of sin, may still be made, by God's blessed Word and Spirit, wise unto salvation : his soul, polluted and debased as it has hitherto been by the indulgence of fleshly lusts, may yet be cleansed and created anew : in a word, he whom Satan was leading captive at his will, may yet be brought into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, and not hell but heaven may be his eternal home. As regards him that is joined to all the living, there is still room for this glorious hope. But as for the dead who have died in their sins, their state is already fixed for ever: a great gulf — an impassable abyss, which not one of all their number can ever get over — yawns between them and the mansions of the redeemed. It is true that Solomon's language on this awful subject is of a nature that rather hints at the condition of the lost in a future world than fully explains it. No one, indeed, can carefully study the revelations of Scripture on the subject of a future world, and especially on the subject of the state of the dead between the close of their life on earth, and the day of final judgment, without being struck with this, that in point of ful- ness and clearness, these revelations, as contained in the New Testament, are very greatly in advance of those in the Old. This indeed is the general characteristic of all the revelations of Scripture, that are specially connected with the coming and the work of Christ. It is He who, by way of eminence, has brought life and immortality to light; and no wonder that till He appeared, so much of comparative obscurity and dark- ness should have hung over all that lies beyond death and the grave. It belongs to the very nature of this progressive 33-i ALL THINGS COME ALIKE TO ALL. opening up of tlie dark secrets of the future world, that the state and the place of the dead should, in Old Testament times, have been shrouded, to Old Testament believers, in a degree of dimness and mystery, which for us have, in great measure, passed away. Accordingly, when Solomon, in describing the career of the wicked, has conducted them "to the dead" — that is, to the place of the dead — he leaves them there wrapped up in gloom and darkness. "The dead," he says, "know not any- thing, neither have they any more a reward ; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy is now perished ; neither have the}'^ any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun." The description, it will be observed, is altogether negative. It tells us what they have not merely — not what they lictve. And yet, limited as is the view here given of the change death makes in the con- dition of those who have lived and died without God — for it is of them, as the context plainly implies, that Solomon is speaking — it is sufficiently humbling and awful. From the moment they die, their connection with this world is at an end. This world was their all, and they have lost it. They know nothing of it now. Its rewards cannot reach them in the grave. Their very name and memory very soon pass away out of the world alto- gether. They may have sat on thrones, and wielded the forces of empires, but they are powerless now. Their love and their hatred are alike impotent. The one cannot benefit, the other cannot injure, even the meanest of living men. It is true, terribly true, that this is not all. But is it not enough to write vanity and mockery upon a life devoted to this world, — occupied and engrossed with nothing better or more endui'ing than the things of sense and time? Oh ! how infinitely preferable to take up our cross, and to follow Christ, and to seek those things which are above ! Be it that the way to that celestial inheritance is both a rough and a narrow way, and that if any man will pursue it, he must be content to deny himself. Be it that in such a life he may have to endure hardness, and to face a great fight of RESULT OF THE ARGUMENT. 335 afflictions, and to be involved in one incessant warfare with the devil, the flesh, and the world. The very struggle is ennobling. It is lifting him at every step into a region of higher and purer enjoyment. The faith by which he fights is purifying his heart, working by love, and overcoming the world. It is daily bring- ing him nearer to God. It is fi.lling him with the Spirit, and making him liker to Christ. It is the trial and the training that are to fit him for entering finally and eternally into the joy of his Lord ! To perceive the precise import and bearing of the somewhat remarkable exhortation which is contained in the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th verses, it is necessary attentively to mark the point, in Solomon's inspired discourse, at which it is introduced. He had been dealing, as we have taken occasion to show, with a diffi- culty which seemed to lie in the way of his argument. His object was to commend wisdom — heavenly wisdom — as the most precious of all treasures, and as the only sure guide. His aim was to show that to follow wisdom's dictates was the certain way to happiness and peace. But how, the objector might ask, was this assumption to be reconciled with the state of things which we see actually existing around us? The fact was too notorious to admit of dispute, that the disciples of wisdom — in other words, the pious and the good — are frequently greater sufferers in this life than the irreligious and the wicked. The very integrity of godly men often brings them into troubles which the laxer principles of the worldly or the wicked, enable them easily to shun. Solomon at once, and unhesitatingly, admitted this to be the case. He admitted, moreover, the course of events in this present earthly scene to be a tangled maze full of intricacies and perplexities, through which, after the closest and most careful study of them, he had many times found it utterly impossible to make his way. In countless instances he had been quite unable to discover why it was "that there were just men, to whom it happened according to the work of the wicked; and wicked men, to whom it happened 336 ALL THINGS COME ALIKE TO ALL. according to the work of the righteous. But, undaunted and undeterred by this difficulty, he adhered as firmly as ever to his former ground, that -wisdom, after all, is the principal thing ; and that, be the present cost what it may, no man is safe but the man who loves and obeys it. To establish this conclusion he fell back, as we have seen, on this decisive consideration, that "the righteous, and the wise, and their works are in the hand of God." Solomon might not be able to unravel the mystery of God's dealings with men, but it will and must come all right in the end. Having met the objector's plea against wisdom with this weighty and unanswerable reply, instead of being in any haste to turn away from the difficulty which the objector had thus interposed, he, on the contrary, returned to it, and put it over again, in the earlier verses of chapter ix., in terms as broad and strong as the objector himself could have ventured to do. He described the course of human affairs in this present life to be such that "No man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them." Such were, at least, the seeming contrarieties of Providence that, judging from the existing condition of things, one might well be at a loss to say who was, and who was not, the favourite of the supreme Ruler. Who was loved, and who was hated, could not well be known where so much uncertainty and irregularity appeared to characterize the dispensation both of evil and of good. At the same time, in the very act of making this admission, Solomon took occasion to indicate that it was really no boon to the ungodly to be thus allowed oftentimes to go unpunished. Their success in sin was proving their snare. It was luring them on to destruction. It was encouraging them in a course tliat must inevitably, in the long run, bring them to ruin. Their life on earth must soon come to an end, and after "that they go to the dead;" to Sheol — the place of the departed — a place that would cut off for ever their connec- tion with this world, and reduce to utter vanity and nothingness all that they now gloried in, and in which they now found their EESULT OF THE ARGUMENT. 337 portion and their pleasure. For them hope "would exist no more. The meanest of the living should then be more to be envied by far than they. Flattered and honoured as they might have been during their brief career of worldliness and unijodli- ness on earth, they should find themselves utterly deserted and helpless in the state of the dead. On earth they might have sat on thrones, and have had nations at their feet ; but when they descended into the gloomy region where the spirits of wicked men must await their final doom, their appearance there should excite no other commotion than that which the 'prophet so graphically describes as signalizing the entrance of the once mighty king of Babylon into that prison-house of the lost soul. "Hell," — that is Sheol, the place of the dead, — "hell from be- neath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee. Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols : the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations ! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north : I will ascend above the heights of the clouds ; I will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell ; to the sides of the pit" (Isa. xiv. 9-15). Here, then, at this point it is that Solomon, breaking oflf from the discussion of the objector's difficulty, gives utterance all at once, and without preface or prelude, to this rather startling exhortation, " Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart." The first question is, To whom is this addressed? — for on the settlement of this question must depend the nature of the construction to be put on the exhorta- 338 ALL THINGS COME ALIKE TO ALL. tion itself. That it is not quite easy to answer tlie question may be inferred from the fact, that commentators of learning and capacity have taken quite opposite views regarding it. Some have held it to be meant for the opposers of wisdom — for the worldly and the wicked — for those who are lovers of plea- sures more than lovers of God; and that it is, consequently, to be understood in an ironical sense, as if Solomon, having just pointed out what must be the inevitable issue of a career like theirs, had meant to say — ' Go on as you have been doing. Eat, drink, and be merry. Make the most of it while it lasts. It is all you are to have, and it will soon be at an end ! ' Others, however, and, as it appears to us, with greater reason, have come to the conclusion that the address in question is intended, not for the opposers, but for the disciples of wisdom. They had been, so to speak, standing by and looking on while Solomon was in controversy with the objector. But now, when he has settled the point, he turns round to wisdom's children, and tells them not to be discouraged by any of those perplexities which the present aspect and condition of things may exhibit. Let no adverse providence, even for a moment, betray them into the idea that God is indifferent as to the life they lead. They may have to suffer for well-doing; the principles of that wisdom which they have chosen for their rule and guide may bring them often into collision with the opinions and customs, the tastes and fashions of the world. If they were of this world, the world would love its own; but just because they are not of the world, they must make up their mind that the world will hate both them and their ways. Let them not distress themselves on this account. However the world may frown upon them, they have the approval of One whose favour is life, and whose loving-kindness is better than life. "Go thy way, therefore," says Solomon, addressing them, " eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works." These last words seem to decide the point as to the true GOD ACCEPTETH THE RIGHTEOUS: 339" interpretation of this passage. God cannot possibly be said to accept the works of the ungodly. The works of the righte- ous alone are w^ell-pleasing in His sight. And the perti- nency of the remark, as brought in here, lies obviously in this — that whereas it was the whole drift and aim of the adver- sary's objection to make it appear at least doubtful whether the righteous had any greater acceptance with God than the wicked, Solomon proclaims this insinuation of the adversary to be wholly groundless ; and would have the righteous to know, believe, and be assured that, let present appearances be what they may, God is on their side — that not only will He acknowledge and reward them in a future state of being, but that even here and now. He regards them with complacency, and is smiling gra- ciously on everything they either do or suffer for His name's sake. The exhortation being thus understood as addressed to those who are striving, through grace, to w^alk in the ways of wisdom, there is no longer any difficulty in explaining the terms which it employs. Plainly these terms are not, and cannot possibly be meant, to recommend a life of thoughtless gaiety and sensual pleasure. No ; but they are meant to recommend the cheerful, thankful, grateful use of whatever portion of this world's enjoy- ments the Lord may be pleased to disjDense to His people. Let them accept the gift as coming from a Father's hand — from one who loves them, and who desires their happiness. Keligion was never meant to make men morose and gloomy. Bringing them, as it does, into fellowship with a reconciled God, and drawing out their hearts in love to Him and to all men for His sake, it is an exhaustless spring of peace, and contentment, and happi- ness in the soul. It belongs to it to lighten, not to aggravate our griefs — to enhance and intensify, and not to impair our joys. It belongs to it, in a word, to do for all, in every age of the world's history and in every sphere of life, what it did for those primitive disciples of Christ of whom it is testified that, '^ continuing with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread 840 ALL THINGS COME ALIKE TO ALL. from liouse to house, they did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people" (Acts ii. 46). The bread, then, and the wine of which Solomon speaks are not the bread of luxury and the wine of excess ; they are simply the provision which the Lord supplies for the body's wants, and to be used accordingly for its good; not abused for its hurt. The white garments for clothing and the ointment for the head are simply the symbols of spiritual joy and health. Living joyfully with the wife of the heart's affection, is but another way of inviting the disciples of wisdom, to draw from domestic life that sweet and enduring solace, which, when rightly ordered, it never fails to yield. And here it may be, in passing, observed that this reference to the happiness to be derived from conjugal affection goes powerfully to corroborate the view that has been adopted of this passage, as intended, not for the wicked and the worldly, but for them that fear God. It was not the way of those who walked according to the course of this world, in Solomon's days, to lean much for their happiness on the quiet scenes of domestic life. The 9th verse is a virtual protest against that poly- gamy and concubinage that were then so common; and in which Solomon himself, in the days of his sin and folly, had gone so far and so fatally astray. For the hardness of men's hearts God had tolerated, but had never approved, that pernicious deviation from His own pure primeval institution; of which He gave the example and the model in the creation and the union of Adam and Eve. The proportion then established between the sexes, and ever since observed, laid the foundation for that law which polygamy violates, and always with grievous loss and injury to man. Upon the whole, therefore, there does seem to be no reason- able doubt, that this exhortation is neither more nor less than a call and encouragement to the disciples of heavenly Avisdom, to take from the possessions and relationships of this present world, tliat kind and measure of enjoyment which they are LET THE RIGHTEOUS REJOICE. 341 fitted and designed to yield. Whatever trials they may have to meet — whatever privations or sufferings, losses or injuries, their adherence to truth and righteousness may bring upon them, — let them not be troubled, neither let them be afraid. He that loveth his life shall lose it ; but he who, in God's service, losetli his life, shall not fail to find it. Let this trust in God be their stay; let this joy in the Lord be their strength; let it embolden them in danger; let it cheer them in adversity; let it be a very present help to them in trouble. Nor is it easy to estimate the immense additional influence which reli- gion acquires, when it is thus associated with a contented, hopeful, and happy spirit. There is a charm about such a religion that wins a way for it, into the hearts even of the thoughtless and unspiritual children of this world. They wonder what it can be that keeps the mind so serene and peaceful amid life's sorrows — so patient and steadfast in dis- charging even the most distasteful duties — so bright and hope- ful in looking forward to an eternal world. And thus it comes to pass, that others, seeing the good works of God's people, learn to glorify God in the day of visitation — in the day when God, in His love and pity, comes to reveal Himself to their own souls ! The fact that they, too — these disciples of wisdom — must at length, like the wicked, " go to the dead," is an urgent reason why they should redeem the time — why they shovdd be work- ing while it is day. Wlijen they shall have passed away out of this world, their present opportunities, whether of getting or of doing good, shall all have come to an end. Nothing that has been neglected here can be attended to there. If we fail to perform a duty in this life, there will be no opportunity of performing it in the place of the dead. If we have errors to confess, or wrongs to repair — if we have any bad influence to undo, or any good influence to employ — if we have any evil habits to unlearn, or any gracious tendencies to cultivate, now is the time. Therefore, says Solomon, " whatsoever tliy hand 342 ALL THINGS COME ALIKE TO ALL. findetli to do, do it with thy might : for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." It is not meant, in saying this, that in the grave, or place of the dead, man sinks into a state of utter unconsciousness and mere oblivion, in which no capacity of any kind remains to the disembodied spirit. Everything that Scripture teaches on the subject leads to quite a contrary conclusion. But this is no doubt meant, that as regards the making up of our account for a judgment-day, our opportunities shall then cease. The account from that day will be summed up and closed. Not one item of all its particulars can, from that moment, be altered. We can add nothing to it, and as little can we take anything from it. There it must stand, just as it is, till the books shall be opened, and till the dead shall be judged out of those things which are written in the books. That rich man who had lived in pleasure on the earth, if he could not now escape from tor- ment himself, would fain, at least, have had his five brethren warned to cease from a way of life that must, otherwise, land them, ere long, in the same dismal place. But it could not be. That work could not be done now. Though one cry from the pit could save them, they should never hear it. How awful the thought ! With what a voice of thunder should it speak to those who are saying, '-'At another time — at a more con- venient season !" With how sharp a spur should it prick the sides of our intent, when we have something to do for God — some warning to utter in the ears of a sinning brother — some counsel to give to an erring neighbour, or friend, or child — some seasonable word to speak for Christ to those who may be setting him at nought — some gift of time, or money, or labour, to lay on God's altar, with a view to the furtherance of His cause and kingdom ! Hell, it has been said with terrible signi- ficance, is paved with good intentions. Let none of ours, by indolent ofF-puttiug, by sloth and self-indulgence, be turned to such a use. Let our good intentions become acts at the very WORK WHILE IT IS DAY. 343 earliest possible; opportunity. Never leave till to-morrow what can and ought to be done to-day. Let this be the lesson learned from this passage by the children of God. And as for the children of the wicked one — those who are living to themselves and to the world, serving divers lusts and pleasures — let them be admonished to learn this from Solomon's words, — to trifle not another day, not another hour, with the interests of their immortal souls. " For there is no work, nor device, nor know- ledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither tliou goest ! " 344 THE UNCERTAINTIES OF LIFE. CHAPTER XV. THE ISSUE OF EVENTS IS OFTEN UNCERTAIN, BUT WISDOM IS ALWAYS A SURE GUIDE. " I retunied, and saw under the sim, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. For man also knoweth not liis time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds tJiat are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them. " This wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and it seemed great unto me: there teas a little city, and few men within it; and there came a gi-eat king against it, and besieged it, and built great biilwarks against it. Now there was foimd in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man. Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevex-theless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. " The words of wise men are heard in quiet, more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools. " Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good." — ECCLES. IX. 11-18. IN this passage, Solomon resumes once more the subject al- ready so largely commented on, of the apparent contrarieties of Providence, and of the actual uncertainties of human life. " I returned," he says, verse 1 1, "and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and cljance happeneth to them all." In the literal race, when the runners were contending for the prize, a single false step might bring the foremost and swiftest headlong to the ground, and leave another to reach the goal before him. In like manner, upon the field of fight, where, in mortal conflict, the combatants were striving for the mastery, the inexperienced stripling miglit, by an unexpected blow, pre- THE RACE IS NOT TO THE SWIFT. 845 vail over all the strength and skill of the most practised warrior. A stone from the sling of a shepherd boy prostrates in tlie dust even the gigantic Goliah. A bow, drawQ at a ven- ture, sends an arrow into the joints of the harness of the mail- clad king of Israel, and decides the fortunes of the day. How often by such seemingly chance strokes, have the issues of great battles, and even the fate of kingdoms, been determined ! And if, instead of thus taking the race and the battle in their strictly literal sense, we take them in that far wider and more comprehensive acceptation, in which they become descriptive, of the ever-varying contests of ordinary human life, liow often is this statement of Solomon realized among all ranks and classes of men ! He whose education and position — whose acquirements and influence — seemed to point him out as pre-eminently sure of success in the profession to which he devotes himself, fails, per- haps, after all; while some nameless and unfriended adventurer rises beside him, in the very same profession, to the highest places and honours it has to bestow. So true is it, that '' neither is bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill." The saying is not, of course, meant to be pushed so far as to imply, that wisdom is of no avail in gaining a livelihood; that intelligence is of no service in the acquisition of wealth ; or that practical sagacity is worthless as a means of rising in the world. What is meant by the saying is simply this — that even with these great advantages, the results in question cannot always be reached. The wise man, by some unfortunate combination of circumstances, may be reduced to want. The man of understanding — the man, for example, most conversant with both the materials and the prin- ciples of commerce — may never come to wealth. Unforeseen events may derange his plans, and disappoint his calculations. Unpropitious seasons may blight the produce of his fields. Storms may sink his ships in the deep. His confidence may be betrayed and his property wasted by those in whose hands he had placed it. And while this man of large and cultured in- 22 M6 THE UNCERTAINTIES OF LIFE. tellect may come to old age in comparative poverty, some igno- rant and illiterate boor, who started in life alongside of him, may have swelled into a millionaire. Once more — to exhaust Solomon's series of examples — " men of skill " — men whose varied knowledge, whose fertility in expedients, whose aptitude for atfairs, whose ability to deal with all sorts of questions, might seem to have placed the world's choicest favours at their feet — even such men are seen occasionally to miscarry, and to come to nought. Some indiscretion into which they are led, gives offence; or envy blows upon their reputation, and blasts it; or some illness disables them at the very moment when their services were needed, and the tide of fortune flows into other channels. In short, adroit and ingenious as they are known to be, they somehow fall out of notice. More bustling and less modest competitors push in before them, and succeed in carrying off the honours and rewards, which they had seemed so much likelier and so much fitter to reap. Contemplating such cases as these — cases which are still of daily occurrence — it was impossible to deny that, in a certain sense, "time and chance happeneth to all." Strictly speaking, indeed, there is, and can be, no such thing as chance under the government of God. Chance iui plies the entire absence of de- sign or pre-arrangement ; it implies the occurrence of an event regulated by no law, and having no place in the settled order and constitution of things. To suppose such an occurrence to be possible, were, in other words, to suppose some want, either of wisdom or of power, on the part of the supreme Ruler. His providence is as minute as it is comprehensive. While it con- trols the movements of suns and stars, it determines equally the falling to the ground of a sparrow or of a leaf The very hairs upon our head are all numbered. Still there is a meaning which chance has in common lan- guage, and in which it is allowable to use it. When a thing happens which, in so far as man is concerned, was altogether unintended and unforeseen, we speak of it as an accident or a MAN KNOWETH NOT HIS TIME. 347 chance. It had a place in God's plan indeed, but it had none in ours; and yet it may have sniSced to overthrow our plan altogether, and to render it utterly nugatory. Things of this kind occur every day ; and it is to these Solomon refers when he says that "time and chance happeneth to them all " — that the wise man, equally as the fool, is often overtaken by events which entirely cross his purposes and frustrate his best-laid schemes. " For," Solomon goes on to say, " man also knoweth not his time : as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are cauirht in the snare ; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time when it falleth suddenly upon them." These are examples by which he illustrates the statement which the 11th verse contains. The swift, the strong, the wise, the men of understanding, the men of skill — are, all of them, liable to misfortunes and adversities which may take them quite by sur- prise — which blast oftentimes their fondest hopes, and involve them, it may be, in loss and ruin at the very moment when they were anticipating triumphant success. When " they are saying peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them." The fish is pursuing its own course through the waters, in search of its prey and unconscious of danger, when all at once it finds itself hopelessly entangled in the folds or caught in the meshes of the fisher's net, and there is no escape. The bird is following its instinct in quest of food, when the limed twig, or the baited trap on which it alights, robs it of its freedom, and consigns it into the hands of the fowler. As blind, oftentimes, is man himself to the coming stroke, which is to smite him to the dust. "Thy sons and thy daughters," said the messenger, when he rushed without warning into the presence of the patriarch Job — " thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house : and, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead ; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee " (Job i. 18, 19). Do not the events of every day illustrate the same thing? How many have recently, and by 34:8 THE UNCERTAINTIES OF LIFE. just such unexpected calamities, been plunged into the deepest distress, in connection with the great convulsion that has been shaking the Avhole commercial world. "What multitudes have been reduced from abundance to a state of absolute destitution ! And how frequently do we hear of the last enemy arresting his victim, perhaps in the very street, and dragging him away on the instant, from the light of the sun and the bustle of the world's affairs, to the darkness and the silence of the tomb. There is no human sagacity or strength that can either foresee or repel these inroads upon the fortune or the life of man. And what is the lesson which they are fitted to teach? Not surely that we should shut our eyes to these hazards and go heedlessly on, as if we were infallibly sure that to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant. Not surely — to take another and a different alternative — that we should re- cognize these uncertainties, and by way of showing our contempt for them, should adopt the reckless maxim — " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." No. But the lesson they loudly and impressively teach is, that we should set our affections on things above, and not on those things which are upon the earth; and that we should be like unto those servants, that wait for the coming of their Lord. If our tenure of the possessions and pleasures of this world be so insecure — if at any moment, and in spite of all our efforts to prevent it, they may be either taken from us or we from them — how foolish is it to build our happiness on such a foun- dation of sand ! How needful to choose, and earnestly to seek after, a better and a more enduring substance : a treasure which moth cannot corrupt, nor any thief break through to steal! And is not such a treasure witliin the reach of alii Is not tlie gospel daily offering it, even to the chief of sinners, and that without money and without price? Is not God, by that gospel, at this very moment, commending His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us; and assuring us, that whosoever belie vet! i on him shall not perish, but shall have THE POOR WISE MAN. 849 everlasting life? What lias tlio world to offer us compared with the salvation of the soul — compared with the pardon of sin — with peace of conscience, and peace with God — with a new heart and a right spirit — with joy in the Holy Ghost — with a hope full of immortality ? In possession of blessings so satisfying, so exhaustless, so imperishable as these, we can bid calm defiance to all the ills of time. For neither "death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other crea- ture, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord ! The connection between verses 13-18, and the immediately preceding context, it is somewhat difficult to trace. At first sight, at least, the passage has a detached and isolated look ; as if the anecdote which it relates had been a sort of episode brought in at this point, rather for the sake of the interest inherently belonging to it, than on account of any particular bearing it may have on the main discourse into which it is introduced. In the foregoing verses, Solomon had been treating of the uncer- tainty that hangs over all human affairs. The voyage of life is continually exposed to so many cross currents, and baffling winds, and sudden storms, that let men steer towards the point they are aiming at as skilfully as they may, they never can be sure of reaching it. Even wisdom itself cannot always avail, to avert such temporal calamities. Now, if some special example was to be cited, by way of illustrating the general doc- trine thus laid down, it might have been supposed that the example in question would be one that should tend to exhibit the impotency of wisdom, in contending with those obstacles and dangers, which it had been already shown to be often totally unable either to foresee or to prevent. But this is not the character of the instance actually adduced. It is, on the con- trary, an instance which evinces the amazing power of wisdom, and the singular service of which it may prove to men, even in the concerns of this present world. The instance is described 350 THE UNCERTAINTIES OF LIFR in the following words : — "There was a little city, and few men within it ; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he bv his wisdom delivered the city." Solomon had liimself personally witnessed what he thus relates. The incident had at least come within the range of his own knowledge, " This wisdom," he says, " have I seen also under the sun, and it seemed great unto me." It had made a strong impression on his mind. The testimony which it bore to the value and efficacy of wisdom appeared to him to be most remarkable. On one side there was a king, backed by a power- ful army, and having at his command, for the capture and destruction of the little and feebly garrisoned city he had come to assail, all the arts and appliances of war. On the other side was a solitary individual, of no note or name, without wealth or station, or social influence; having no other strength than that which was derived from his own personal worth, and no other resources than those of a Ood-fearing, sagacious, and thoughtful spirit. Solomon does not tell us by what concurrence of circum- stances it was that a city, apparently so insignificant, came to have arrayed against it the military force of a kingdom. Little as it was, it may have occupied such a position, strategically considered, as made it the key of the country to which it be- longed. Guarding some perilous pass on the frontier, its fall might have involved the laying of the whole interior open to an invading enemy. The war was perhaps suddenly declared, and. the small and solitary citadel was in consequence taken at unawares. There were "few men in it;" and, among those to whom the care of it had been committed, no one at all com- petent to face the terrible emergency that had arisen. Both the governor and the garrison were at their wits' end. It is to them and their proceedings, probably, that reference is meant to be made in the 17th verse, wliere the "cry of the ruler" — his loud and imperious command — is spoken of, as drowned and lost WISDOM BETTER THAN WEAPONS OF WAR. 851 amid the turbulence of the distracted and terrified citizens, who will no longer obey him. They have perhaps no confidence in his leadership ; and at any rate they think it madness to resist the besieging army by which they are already hemmed in on every side. But meanwhile, as has often happened in a like extremity, help is coming from a quite unexpected source. As Solomons father had truly and beautifully said in the book of Psalms — " There is no king saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength. An horse is a vain thing for safety; neither shall he deliver any by his great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope in His mercy" (Psalm xxxiii. 16-18). In that beleaguered city, there was at least one who knew that the fear of the Lord is wisdom ; and that to depart from evil is understanding. When the hearts of all others were failing them for fear, this man was full of the calm confidence of those who trust in the Lord, and whose minds are stayed upon God. Realizing the momentous nature of the crisis, he addressed himself to the task of devising the means of deliverance. What were the measures he adopted, we are not informed. He may have suofsrested a new and more skilful method of conducting the defence, and have thereby protracted the siege till an ade- quate force was sent to relieve the city ; or, more likely, he may have secured its deliverance by himself heading some such dar- ing and dexterous night attack, as that by which Gideon spread a sudden panic through the host of the Midianites; causing them, in their confusion and terror, to fall on one another, and to become their own destroyers. Certain it is, that the poor wise man, by his wisdom, did save the city ; and that he did this when its immediate and utter destruction appeared other- wise inevitable. However true, therefore, it may be, that '•time and chance happeneth to all," wisdom is not on that account to be despised. It might seem, indeed, as if by the case now brought forward, Solomon were not only not following oo'2 THE UNCERTAINTIES OF LIFE. up and fortifying the positions lie had just before been laying down, but as if rather he were subverting and overthrowing them. Here was a case in which wisdom proved stronger, than both time and chance put together. Here was a case which showed that, after all, men do succeed when they make use of the proper means; and that there is no need, therefore, to be giving way to that feeling of helplessness and hopelessness to which the statement might give rise, that "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill." Such, perhaps, is the sort of impression which a first reading of the passage before us, may leave uiDon the mind. Viewed in such a light, it may seem to be somewhat at variance with, if not in positive opj^osition to, the statements previously made : and at any rate to have no intelligible connection with them. When more closely and carefully considered, however, this first and hasty conclusion will be found speedily to give way. Let it be observed, that there are two distinct things set forth in the preceding context. First, wisdom is there commended as the choicest of all treasures — as the only guide which it is safe for man to follow, and as never failing to conduct to true happiness, all who listen to its counsels, and walk in its ways. And second, this general statement is coupled with a free and full admission of the fact, that wisdom does not secure to its fol- lowers an immunity from temporal trials and sufferings : that on the contrary, it may and does often bring those who cleave to it into difficulties and distresses, from which wicked or worldly men are altogether free. Both of these positions Solo- mon had clearly laid down, and the incident introduced in the passage before us will be found, when narrowly examined, to bear partly on the one and partly on the other ; and thus after all to have real and important links of connection, to bind it up, with the main scope and design of the discourse in which it occurs. THE POOR man's WISDOM IS UNREQUITED. 353 Yorjirsf, this incident shows that Solomon did well to com- mend wisdom. See what wisdom effected even in the hands of a poor man ! It was better than strength ; it was better than weaj^ons of war. It was more than a match for all the resources of military power. It extricated a city, and perhaps through that city, a country from imminent peril. And observe further, that the wisdom which proved of such eminent advantage was not mere science or secular skill — not mere tact or genius. It was that wisdom, the beginning and essence of which is the fear of God, Not only is this fairly to be inferred from the whole strain of this book, — in which Solomon's object through- out is to exalt and teach this heavenly wisdom, — but it is further and still more directly to be inferred from the terms of this very passage itself, in the close of which the poor man who had proved so great a benefactor by his wisdom, is directly con- trasted with the sinner, as his true and proper opposite. The wise man is a source of blessing, just as the sinner is a public curse, destroying, as he continually does, much good. But while the example cited by Solomon thus goes to illus- trate and confirm all that he had been saying before, of the excellence of wisdom, let it be observed, in the second place, how it confirms and illustrates, not less pointedly, what he had also said as to the trials to which the wise are often sub- jected, at the hands of their fellowmen. Was the poor wise man, who delivered the city, rewarded as he deserved 1 Did he receive at the hands of those whom he had been the means of rescuing from destruction, the tribute of honour and gratitude that was his due? Did his fellow-citizens, when their safety had been secured, gather around him to do him homage? Did his sovereign hasten to confer upon him, some special and dis- tinguished mark of his royal favour ? Did his country erect a monument, to hand down to posterity the memory of his noble deed? They did nothing of the kind. "No man remembered that same poor man." He was allowed, so soon as the danger had passed away, to sink into his former obscurity. His triumph, ooi THE UNCERTAINTIES OF LIFE like that of the stripling David over Goliah, rendered him, not improbably, an object of aversion to the chiefs of the city; who had themselves been proved so utterly incompetent to the task which he had performed for them. As is very common with little and ungenerous minds, they were perhaps mortified that one, whom they considered so much beneath them, should have thrown them so completely into the shade. Instead of celebrating his praises, they were most likely at pains to dis- parage and depreciate what he had done ; and to ascribe the suc- cess which had attended his plans to any other cause rather than to his merit. In short, the base neglect and ingratitude with which he was treated made him a conspicuous example of that very thing of which Solomon had been speaking, so far back as in the 14th verse of the preceding chapter, "that there be just men, unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked." This incident, therefore, instead of being at variance with the positions previously laid down, or having no connection with them, is, in reality, a most appropriate and instructive commentary upon both of the aspects of wisdom in which Solo- mon had been presenting it : by one part of the story which it tells, encouraging us to covet and to cleave to wisdom, as man's best portion; and, by another part of it, preparing us to under- stand that wisdom, if it is to be chosen, must be chosen for its own sake : in other words, that if any man will go after Him who is the Wisdom of God, he must take up his cross and deny himself This case of the poor wise man suggests a thought that seems not undeserving of notice. It was a physical danger — a danger to life and limb, to person and pro2:)erty — he was the means of averting from the city to which he belonged. It was also, in all probability, by a physical effort or contrivance, of some sort or other, that this object was accomplished. But there are other dangers, to which cities and communities are exposed, besides that of the sword. There arc moral and spiritual WHAT IT IS THAT ENDANGERS OUR CITIES. 355 dangers, which are far more formidable to the true safety and well-being of human society, than any of those which are of a merely external and material kind. Ignorance and irreligion, error and ungodliness, are enemies far more deadly, and far more difficult to deal with, than the common forces of war. The assailants that had come up against the city spoken of, in the passage now under review, were still outside the walls. They had placed it, indeed, in a state of siege, and had built great bul- warks against it; and from these artificial heights their slingers and their bowmen were, perhaps, raining their destructive missiles upon the little company of its defenders. But, nevertheless, they had not yet scaled the ramparts, or gained a footing within the city itself. In this other case of which it is now proposed to speak, the state of things is altogether different. Here the enemy is already in the heart of the city, and has, it may be, a great part of the citizens engaged on his side. He has emis- saries at work in every street. Walls, however high, gates, however closely watched, are powerless to keep them out. They are like the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and the destruction that wasteth at noon- day. Here, with bloated visage, intemperance is opening her countless and fatal haunts; and, with her intoxicating cup, is setting on fire all the worst passions of the human heart. There lewdness, with brazen forehead, is busily prosecuting her shameless trade; and luring the unwary and the sensual to that house of which Solomon, in another place, says, with terrible emphasis, that its gates lead down to hell. Elsewhere mammon, with greedy eye and grasping hand, is busy with his golden bribes, tempting eager crowds to buy the world at the expense of losing their souls. In the narrow lanes and bye-ways of the city, poverty and ignorance are tyrannizing over their numerous and wretched victims — filling their homes with misery and their hearts with bitterness, and preparing them as fuel, with which to set the city on fire, when the fitting hour of political disaffection and disorder may arrive. While, finally, in dark corners of the city, infidelity 35 G THE UNCERTAINTIES OF LIFE. and atheism are insidiously disseminating, — in workshops and clab-rooms — by the platform and by the press — those pernicious principles which wither up and deaden all the better feelings and nobler aspirations of humanity; which make either an utter blank or a fond delusion of the unseen and eternal world ; and which leave the human soul, like a ship in the midst of the mighty ocean, without compass or helm — without steersman or star — to be drifted or driven at the sport of the wind and waves. That man must know little of the existing condition of society, even in a country so highly favoured as our own, who considers the picture now sketched as either unreal or overdrawn. And if there is to be deliverance for such a city, whence is it to come but just from "the poor wise manr' He is the true salt of the earth, and light of the world. The presence and influence — the labours and prayers of such as he — are, under God, the true defence and safeguard of every community in which they have a place. The teacher of the humble Sabbath-school, who is quietly plying his vocation among the little ragged group that surrounds him ; the local missionary, who, altogether unnoticed, and out of sight of the great world, is making his daily or nightly round, down the dark alleys and up the darker stairs of some dingy and neglected district ; the tract distributor or Christian visitor, who is dropping here and there, in waste places of the city, the good seed of the kingdom; the pious parent who, unseen by any but the all-seeing Father above, is training up his children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord ; the faithful minister of Christ, who is from week to week declaring, in the pulpit and from house to house, the whole counsel of God; persuading all to whom he has access, by the terrors of the Lord to flee from the wrath to come, and beseech- ing them, by the mercies of God, to lay hold on eternal life; — These, I repeat, and such as these, are doing infinitely more for all tlie best and highest interests of man — nay, even for the peace, and safety, and prosperity of civil society itself — than all WHO ARE THE DELIVERERS OF OUR CITIES. 357 the other agencies put together, Avliicli the wise men of this worhl can employ. What was it, that rescued the nations of the ancient world, from the universal heathenism in which they were sunk; from the gross superstitions and multiplied ahominations of an all-prevailing idolatry 1 ISrot the poetry and literature, not the arts and philosophy, of Greece and Home — but the gospel of Jesus Christ. Those humble peasants and fishermen, who issued from the upper chamber in some obscure street of Jerusalem, were the poor wise men that delivered the cities of the ancient world. Who was it that, at the blessed and glorious era of the Ee- formation, recovered, for so many lands, the light and liberty which the Papal Antichrist, during his long reign in the dark ages, had so completely taken away 1 It was neither the colleges of Italy, nor the chivalry of France ; it was neither the philosophy of the schools, nor the power and policy of princes. It was such men as Luther, the miner's son, — and Knox, the child of parents so humble, that the very place of his birth is matter of dispute. It was such men — poor but wise men — men full of that wisdom that cometh from above, of that faith which is the victory that overcometh the world — who delivered half the cities and nations of Europe, from the soul-destroying dominion of the Man of Sin and Son of Perdition. Who was it, once more, to take an example from more modern times, — who was it that tamed the ferocious cannibalism, and broke up the foul idolatry of the islands of the South Sea, and turned whole races of brutal savages, into an orderly society of civilized and Christian men? It was not the chiefs of European science — the men who issue from academies and institutes, and whose great names are blazoned on the very forehead of fame. No ; it was a little company df the followers of John Wesley — obscure individuals of whom the world had never heard — men with a spade or a saw, a hatchet or a hammer, in one hand, and a Bible in the other — men who were contented to go away to 858 THE UNCERTAINTIES OF LIFE. the ends of the earth, and to live among barbarians, and to labour, and pray, and wait, altogether out of the great world's sight, for weary months and years; hoping against hope, and looking up steadfastly to Him, who honoured them at length to be the instruments of making these solitary places glad, and of causing these wildernesses to blossom as the rose. This is a wisdom that has been seen under the sun, more or less, in all ages — which, blessed be God, is to be seen in many places at this hour. And surely, if we rightly consider it — if we are at any pains to understand and to estimate the glorious results it has achieved in days gone by, and which it is achiev- ing in our own day, it cannot fail " to seem great unto us;" so great that there is nothing comparable to it upon earth. And yet, is it not true, that those who have most of this wisdom, are often little regarded by the world? Society gets, in the form of many most important temporal benefits, the good of their labours. To these labours it is mainly indebted for the maintenance of civil peace and social order; and for the industry and honesty, on which the wealth and prosperity of nations so largely depend. But while they reap these fruits of a harvest, which they them- selves have done little, perhaps less than nothing, to produce, how seldom do they exhibit any corresponding sense of obliga- tion to the poor wise men who have delivered the city? As regards the great world — the world of rank and fashion, of place and power — how true is it, on the contrary, to say, that no one remembered these poor wise men? Instead of being commended and honoured, how often have they been "evil en- treated," nay, persecuted and put to death ! Paul was one of these poor wise men, and his reward, in so far as this world was concerned, was bonds and stripes, imprisonments, and death. At this very moment, how many men of this class are labouring, by the dissemination of that gospel truth which alone can make any people free, to deliver the city or country in which they live from ignorance and vice, from error and wickedness, — and are doing it at the peril of their lives ! And even in our own land, though, THE world's ingratitude. 359 blessed be God. there is iu it a growing appreciation of the worth of those services, that are rendered to society, by the example and by tlie efforts of God-fearing and spiiitual men — does it not still remain to be said, that much criminal neglect of, and indif- ference to, these self-denying labours continues to prevail? Yes, even in this Christian land of ours, the man who will amuse society — the man who will charm it with a song, or the woman who, like Herod's daughter, will please it with a dance, or the individual of either sex who can make it laugh or weep with unrealjdramatic mirth or tears — is far more sure of both applause and substantial acknowledgments, than the humble, homely, self- sacrificing servant of God, who is remarkable for nothing but for quietly and conscientiously doing good. Let him not on that account be discouraged. Yerily he shall in no case lose his reward. He may be little regarded or remembered here, but there is a book in which it is written : " They tliat be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever!" (Dan. xii. 3). Though he be poor in this world, he is one of those whose blessed- ness it is ''to make many rich/' and though his wisdom may be despised on earth, it will be both esteemed and honoured in heaven. Having helped to save one city on earth, he shall be made ruler over many cities, in his Master's kingdom above. Nay more, even as regards this present world itseltj his wisdom is not thrown away. It may not have so large, or so enthusiastic an audience, as that which gathers around those whose aim is, not to profit but, to please. It may be often drowned and lost for the time, amid the noise and turmoil of the cares of this life, the deceitful- ness of riches, and the lusts of other things. But after all, "the words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools." Whether the word 'quiet,' in this sentence, liave reference to times or to men, in both senses it is equally true. Quiet men — men of calm and dispassionate minds — give heed to the words of wisdom, though noisy fools may disregard them. Also, in quiet 360 THE UNCERTAINTIES OF LIFE. times, in tlie hours of retirement and reflection, when the dis- tractions of the world are shut out, the words of wisdom come back upon the mind and sink into the Jieart. How unlike in this respect to the cry of him that ruleth among fools ! Even at the moment it is uttered, his cry may fall powerless npon the thoughtless, ignorant, or impatient crowd to whom it is addressed ; and this it may do, for no other or better reason, than because it does not suit the fancy or frenzy of the hour. At any rate, and in any case, its influence is but transitory; its power short-lived. What avails it that Herod's oratory makes him the idol of the moment, so that the venal multitude hail his voice as that of a god, and not of a man? Next day, eaten of worms, dying a loathsome and miserable death, he and his oratory are alike forgotten. So is it with the cry of all those who rule among fools. Whether it be the " imperious Caesar" who once. Colossus- like, bestrode the world; or only some Yorick of infinite jest, the war-cry of the one is now as impotent as the wit of the other — the world has long ceased to think of or care for either. But mark the difi'erence in the case of the words of the wise. A jail was deemed good enough, while he lived, for such an one as John Bunyan; and yet the words of that "poor wise man" have gone over all the earth, and are read in the language of almost every nation of the world. " The righteous shall be held in everlasting remembrance, but the memory of the wicked shall rot!" For such reasons as those now stated, Solomon follows up the story of the poor wise man with this pointed and significant saying —that " wisdom is better than weapons of war." War wounds, but wisdom heals. War overturns, but it is wisdom that builds up and restores. War is the hurricane that sinks the ship ; wisdom is the favouring breeze that wafts it to the desired haven. War is the torrent that furrows the earth, and sweeps its soil into the sea; wisdom droppeth softly, like the rain or the gentle dew from heaven, to refresh the thirsty ground and to bless the springing thereof In a word, war and all its ONE SINNER DESTROYETH MUCH GOOD. 3G1 weapons belong to the bloody brood of him who was a murderer from the beginning; wisdom is the attribute and gift of Him who came to bring peace on earth, good-will to men, and glory- to God in the highest ! As a foil to the graphic picture Avhich Solomon, with the hand of inspiration, has thus sketched of the " poor wise man," he sets over against it, in the closing words of the passage before us, the picture of the sinner. He has shown us what an amount of benefit even a single wise man, however humble and obscure his station, may be honoured to confer. But not more truly is he a fountain of blessing than is the sinner a source of mischief and peril. " One sinuer," even one, " destroyeth much good.' One solitary Achan brought reproach and wrath upon the whole camp of Israel One Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, made a whole nation to sin. One Satan tarnished all the glory of this fair creation — polluted the innocence and blighted the beauty of Eden — brought death into the world and all our woe. So it has been from that fatal day until now. Some one or other, of the seed of the serpent, is continually marring the work of the seed of the woman. Nor is it, merely, in the public history of churches and nations, that we find evidence of the truth of Solo- mon's words. That history, indeed, is full of such evidence. In the case of the Christian church, how often has its unity been broken — its peace destroyed — its progress in the great and God- like mission of regenerating the world and saving souls from death, ruinously impeded, by the perversity of some obstinate schismatic, or by the contentiousness of some fierce polemic, or by the errors of some insidious or ambitious heretic ! In the case of civil society, how often have nations been driven or dragged into the most destructive wars — wars which have deso- lated whole kingdoms and deluged the earth with blood ; and all, it may be, to gratify the whim, or to indulge the malice, of the worthless favourite of some imperial tyrant ! Of such examples public history, both civil and ecclesiastical, is full ; and so also is the less conspicuous history of common 23 362 THE UNCERTAINTIES OF LIFE. life. In the little circle of private companionship, how much good does one sinner often destroy by his seductive influence and example — drawing his associates aside from those paths of piety and virtue in which they had been trained, and plunging them, perhaps, in the long run into the depths of vice and crime. Ill the stUl narrower and more sacred circle of a family, what ruin and misery, what blighted hopes and broken hearts, may too frequently be traced to the undutiful or profligate conduct of some one of its members. In all the relations of society deep and lasting injury is thus continually resulting from the words, and from the actions, and from the influence of individual men. What renders the fact still more painful and melancholy is, that these individuals may sometimes, after all, be men who have something in them of the grace of God. The sinner of whom Solomon designed to speak was, in all probability, one who had no fear of God before his eyes — a carnal, ungodly, unregenerate man of the world. He, no doubt, pre-eminently is a destroyer of much good. But, nevertheless, it greatly concerns even God's own people to bear in mind that they too are sinners, and that they too may be found, on many occasions, exemplifying the truth of Solomon's words. Let it never be forgotten that not one sinner only, but even one sin, may be, and often is, the means of destroying much good. One word of malice or envy, of falsehood or folly, spoken even unadvisedly with our lips, may leave consequences behind it upon the minds and hearts of others, and upon our own good name and character, which we may never afterwards be able to do away. THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT. 363 CHAPTER XVI. FOLLY CONTRASTED WITH WISDOM. " Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour. " A wise man's heart w at his right hand ; but a fool's heart at his left. Yea also, when he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one thitt he is a fool. " If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place; for yielding paci- fieth great offences. " There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, as an error which proceedeth from the ruler; folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place. I have seen servants uijon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth. "He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him. " Whoso removeth stones shall be hurt therewith; and he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby. " If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: but wisdom is ])rofitable to direct. "Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment; and a babbler is no better. The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious : but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself. The beginuing^of the words of his mouth is foolishness ; and the end of his talk is mischievous madness. A fool also is full of words : a man cannot tell what shall be ; and what shall be after him, who can tell liim ? The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city. " Woe to thee, land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning ! Blessed art thou, land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkemiess ! " By miich slothfiihiess the building decayeth ; and through idleness of the hands the house di-oppeth tlirough. "A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all thinffs. " Curse not the king, no not in thy thought ; and curse not the rich in thy bed-cham- ber : for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that wliich hath wings shaU tell the matter." — Eccles. x. 1-20. IN tlie opening verse of chapter vii., Solomon had emphati- cally said that a good name is better than precious ointment. It may have been this very comparison which, afterwards, sug- gested the striking and most important thought to which ex- 364 FOLLY CONTRASTED WITH WISDOM. pression is given, in the outset of the passage at present before us. The very sweetness of a precious ointment — the very exquisiteness and delicacy of its odour — exposes it to be the more easily injured. It may be so tainted by the conniption of even a dead fly, as to have its perfume spoiled. By so seem- ingly trifling a cause, may all the cost and skill bestowed on it by the apothecary, be rendered of no avail. And how true a picture does this illustration exhibit, of the fatal injury which a little folly is sure to inflict, upon the good name of the man who is had in reputation for wisdom and honour! Indiscretions that would never be noticed in men of inferior character, are ruinous to him. Nor is it difficult to understand how this result should arise. On a soiled garment, even a fresh stain makes no very conspicuous mark; but a spot catches the eye at once, on a snow-white robe. Men who walk according to the course of this world — who make no pretensions to be guided, in their way of life, by any higher standard than may be found in the world's habits and maxims, fashions and tastes — excite no surprise when they commit a folly or a sin. The man of plea- sure, may be seen following his gay or licentious career — the vain and frivolous, wasting their money in dress and display, and their time in idle and unprofitable amusements — the selfish and unscrupulous, sacrificing the feelings and the interests of others to their own — the irreligious and profane, neglecting and despis- ing sacred things ; all this may be seen, and is seen among men of the world every day, without calling forth, perhaps, even a passing remark. Their character and their life, are in perfect keeping with one aiiother. To serious and thoughtful minds, indeed, the spectacle they present may be both pitiable and pain- ful; but it produces no wonder. The case is altogether difl'erent, when such things are seen, in those to whom we have been taught to look up, with reverence and esteem. The utterance of one single profane or polluting word — the commission of one solitary act of dishonesty — the tampering, even in one instance, with truth — the giving way, in any circumstances, or in any FOLLY IS THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT. 865 one case, to inebriety — the breaking out, for only one moment, into some burst of intemperate heat and passion — the deviating, though in but one isohited example, from the principles of integrity and honour ; the doing of any one of these things by a man who bears the reputation of fearing God and professing godliness, may suffice to inflict the most serious damage upon his name and fame. Such a man is like a city set on an hill, that cannot be hid. The higher the estimation in which he has been held, the more he is observed ; and the more do even his lightest acts and words, attract the notice of all around him. Such a man, moreover, is measured, and justly, by a stricter rule than that which is applied to mere ordinary men of the world. They regulate their conduct, avowedly, by worldly principles. He is pro- fessedly guided by the principles of the Word of God; and these principles, though practically disowned by themselves, even worldly men apply at once to him. ISTor has he any right to complain of their doing so. It may be no zeal for a pure morality — and much less for the honour of God's cause and truth — by which they are actuated in opening their mouths so wide against him, and in being in such haste to condemn his fault. Even when they affect to be influenced by such high considerations as these, their real motive, after all, may be envy and ill-will. His previous repute for piety and jiurity — for spirituality and holiness — had been felt as a continual testi- mony and reproach, against their own careless and carnal way of life. They were waiting for his halting, and his fall is to them a source of sneering and malignant triumph. But while the fiict of their being animated by such unworthy feelings, may sufficiently condemn them, it does nothing whatever to acquit or justify him. The very circumstance that so many are ready to proclaim his error, and to turn it into a handle against religion, should only have served to keep him more studiously upon his guard, and to stir him up to greater prayerfulness and circum- spection. Look at that one act of violence on the part of Moses' SQ6 FOLLY CONTRASTED WITH WISDOM. in smiting and slaying the Egyptian; liow lie lost by it tlie con- fidence of his fellow-couDtrymen, and was compelled to flee away into exile. Or look at that one dark passage in the history of David, connected with "the matter of Uriah," — how infidels and scoffers in every sncceeding age, even until now, have made it an occasion for pointing at him the finger of scorn, and for deriding the piety that breathes in his inspired and holy psalms, and which shone on many occasions so brightly in his life. Even when the offences of good men are far less grave than these, they still exert a most pernicious influence upon the cause of God. Christ is never so sorely wounded, as when He is wounded in the house of his friends. It is impossible, therefore, to make too much account of this significant saying of Solomon, that is now before us. God's people cannot sufficiently watch and pray, lest they enter into temptation. Having thus pointed out how easily this precious treasure of heavenly wisdom may be injured or lost, even after it has been largely acquired, Solomon proceeds to specify some of the dis- tinctive marks by which its presence may be known. " A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart is at his left." The heart is here evidently to be understood, as identical with the whole mind. It is not to be taken, that is, as the seat of the affections merely, but as inclusive of the understanding also. But what is meant by saying that the heart or mind, of the wise man, is at his right hand? The right hand is the chief instrument of action. To have the heart or mind, therefore, at the right hand, is to have it in a state of readiness for any emergency that may arise. When distinguishing, in chap, ii., between the wise man and the fool, Solomon took occasion to say that the wise man's eyes are in his head, whereas the fool walketh in darkness. In that place it was the enlightening pro- perty of wisdom of which he designed to speak. It enables its possessor to see around him. It foresees dangers, and avoids them. It unravels perplexities, and finds a way through them. It walks ill confidence and security amid temptations and trials THE FOOL IS ALWAYS UNPREPARED. 367 by wliicli tlie fool is overborne. The fool is like one who has no eyes — who knows not whither he is going — and who is, in consequence, stumbling and falling at every step. Here, on the other hand, it is not so much the enlightening liower, as the ;praciicai e/^cie/ic^/ of wisdom, that Solomon intends to celebrate. The wise man is always in circumstances to meet the call of duty. If an opportunity of doing some good work presents itself, he is ready to take advantage of it. If an occa- sion offers for speaking a seasonable word, whether of encourage- ment or warning, he knows what to say. He goes about, in consequence, not only wishing, but doing good. In contrast with this state of continual readiness for action, the fool is always unprepared. His heart is at his left hand. He is like the soldier who goes to the battle, and there finds out, when the trumpet sounds, that he has forgotten his sword. He is like the artisan whose work is before him, but who has mislaid his tools. He is, in consequence, always missing his opportunity. The wind has fallen, before he has found out how to hoist his sail. The tide has ebbed, before he has been able to launch his boat. His folly makes him useless, — a hinderance rather than a help where anything really important has to be done. Alas ! if we look around us, how few are the wise men, and how many are the fools, of whom Solomon, with the hand of inspira- tion, has by these few rapid touches, sketched the picture ! Let it be carefully observed, ihat to be wise in the sense here in- tended, it is not enough simply to possess the grace of God. There are many, of whom we dare not doubt that their souls have been renewed, and that they have the root of the matter in them, whose hearts, nevertheless, could not be said, save in some very limited sense, to be at their right hand. Their minds are ill-informed — their judgment is weak — their temper is not under control. They are wanting in patience, in self-denial, in steadi- ness, in habits of application and mental discipline. Their piety, in consequence of these defects, exerts little influence on others. Not only does it not tell on general society; it is hardly felt as 808 FOLLY CONTRASTED WITH WISDOM. a power, even in their own families. Nay, by reason of these defects, they are often, perhaps, the means of bringing religion into disrepute. They expose it to suspicion by their inconsis- tencies, or, it may be, sometimes to ridicule, by their foibles and follies. If all this were considered as it ought to be, greater heed would be given, to these earnest exhortations of Solomon, to cultivate wisdom. It is true that the beginning, the founda- tion, the very essence of true wisdom, is the fear of God. He -who is destitute of this is a fool, however many and various may be his intellectual acquirements and gifts. That faith which apprehends God in Christ, is the root of all that is good and gracious in any human soul. But faith is not all, that goes to make up and complete, the character of a Christian. " Besides this," we must give all diligence to " add to our faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly -kindness, and to brotherly-kindness charity." And the same apostle who delivers this exhortation tells us, at the same time, that it is only " if these things be in us and abound," that we shall be " neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." Nay, more, he declares that " he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that lie was purged from his old sins" (2 Peter i. 5-9). In other words, lacking these things he is to a large extent like him of whom Solomon says, that " his heart is at his left hand." His religion, though it may be such as to consist with the salvation of his own soul, is of little service to others. It presents but a feeble testimony for God's cause and truth, and is all but impotent, as either a guiding or restraining force, amid the errors and corruptions of the world. It is true that there are diversities of gifts, both of nature and of grace. But were all to stir up, as becomes them, the gift that is in them — were all, that is, at pains to cultivate the gifts, whether of grace or nature, which God has bestowed upon them — what a much nobler, more in- fluential, and beneficent thing would their Christianity be. In THE FOOL BETEAYS HIMSELF. 3u9 other words, did we all set more liahituallj and earnestly before us that divine model after whicli God has predestinated all his children to be conformed — did we consider Christ — did we strive, through grace, to copy Him who is the wisdom of God — then should we be all far liker to Solomon's wise man, whose heart is at his right hand. A Christianity thus ripe and full, would make even the humblest believer a mighty power, on the side of godliness. It is the reproach of the religion of our day, not simply that there are so few conversions, so comparatively limited a number whose hearts have been turned to the Lord; but that, among these, the number is so small who have made any considerable progress in the life of God — who have grown up unto a perfect man — to anything approaching "to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Having thus pointed it out, as a marked distinction between the wise man and the fool, that while the wise man is ready for every call of duty, the fool, on the contrary, is like one taken at unawares — is like those thoughtless and improvident virgins of the parable, who had the oil to seek for their lamps when they should have been already lighted — Solomon j)roceeds to notice it as a further characteristic of the fool, that he is continually betraying his folly. "When he walketh by the way his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool." He cannot hide it. Not that he intends to convey this impression, but that, in point of fact, he does convey it. So long, indeed, as "he holdeth his peace," even a "fool may be counted wise" (Pro v. xvii. 28). But he has only to open his lips in order to let out the secret, and to show what he really is. His ignorance, his petulance, his indiscretion, his self-com- placency and presumption, let all who meet him know that he is a fool. Every one sees it but himself; for as modesty and humility are usually found to be the accompaniments of real wisdom, self-conceit and vanity are as generally the attendants of folly. He talks loudly and confidently on subjects, regarding which, wiser men hardly venture to give an opinion. The wise 370 FOLLY CONTRASTED WITH WISDOM. are like deep rivers, wliicli flow quietly. The fool is like the shallow stream, which brawls and makes a noise. The character, as Solomon describes it, is a most contemptible one, and the picture is true to the life. Let us seek to be as unlike it as possible, for, surely, this is the design of inspiration in setting it before us. At the 4th verse Solomon returns to a subject of which he had taken some notice in a previous chapter. "If," he says here, "the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place; for yielding pacifieth great offences." In the former passage (viii. 3), he had given, substantially, similar advice, saying, "Be not hasty to go out of his sight" — out of the sight, that is, of the king — "for he doeth whatsoever pleaseth him." In both places he is giving counsel, as to the right way of dealing with princes. There is a deference due to the civil ruler in virtue of the ofiice he fills. The powers that be are ordained of God; and in all things lawful we are to be subject, not only for wrath, but for conscience sake. Even when the ruler's commands are harsh and unreasonable, the man that fears God must not allow himself to forget his allegiance. Only the very gravest extremity will justify a breach, between the subject and the ruler. Though the spirit of Saul rose up often, in bitter and causeless enmity, against David, he never, for one moment, took up the attitude of rebellion. He withdrew, indeed, at last, and of necessity, from the king's presence ; but never from his proper place as the king's subject. It is a perilous step that man takes, who commits himself to treason. In a country like ours, where law is supreme, and binds the sovereign as firmly as the subject, there is, happily for us, little occasion for being much exercised about such precepts as the one which this 4th verse lays down. Under the more arbitrary rule of ancient times the case was, no doubt, very difi"erent. Many of the rulers of both Judah and Israel, whose reigns Scripture records, must have often placed those about them, under great tempta- tions to do what Solomon here condemns. Oppression makes wisdo:m soothes. 371 even wise men mad; as has been too frequently proved, both in older and in later times. It was not without need, therefore, that, amonof the counsels of wisdom, there should be something; found, bearing on such a state of things. When the God-fearing man did find himself tried, by the spirit of the ruler rising up against him, — under the influence, it might be, of some injurious misrepresentation, or perhaps of mere caprice and passion, — what was he to do % In the first place, let him do nothing hastily. Let him exercise patience. Let him rather suffer wrong than do wrong. Let him watch his opportunity. By yielding for the moment he may, by-and-bye, get ample justice. There is a wonderful power in the arts of conciliation. A soft answer turneth away wrath ; and what is better still, when a man's ways please God, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. Esther and Mordecai succeeded in getting the persecutiug edict of Ahasuerus recalled, by committing their way unto the Lord, and by waiting for the fitting moment to speak. A wise man's heart, as Solomon had elsewhere said, discerneth both time and judgment. And well it were, for the interests of peace and love, if, in less conspicuous spheres of life, the same prudent course were always followed. How often are lasting enmities and divisions caused, simply for want of a little of that yielding, whose power to pacify even great offences, Solomon so justly celebrates. Pride or passion insists on resentiug the wrong, and the breach becomes irreparable. Let those, who may be in danger of so acting, remember these words of the apostle Peter, " If, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even here- unto were ye called : because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered. He threatened not; but committed himself to Him who judgeth righteously" (1 Peter ii. 21-23), The natui-al man thinks it degrading to yield, to submit, to bear injustice. It is not degrading if it oiZ FOLLY CONTRASTED WITH WISDOM. be done for conscience towards God. It is, on the contrary, to win a great moral triumpli ; and he who, in the face of, it may be, great provocation, can so rule his own spirit as to do this thing, is greater than he that taketh a city. In the case alluded to in this 4th verse — the case of umbrage being taken by the ruler against the subject — it might be the ruler himself that was in the wrong, or it might be the subject that was in fault. There is nothing said, positively to determine this point, either way. If cause had been given, by the subject, for the spirit of the ruler rising up against him, all the more would it be his duty to yield. But even if no adequate cause, or no cause at all, had been given for it, Solomon's counsel would still apply. There is no such ambiguity, however, about the cases specified in the verses that follow. Here, obviously, Solo- mon intends to single out acts, in which the ruler had grossly abused his power. " There is an evil," he says, " which I have seen under the sun, as an error which proceedeth from the ruler. Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place. I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth." A greater error than this, the ruler could not well commit. There is no function belonging to rulers which they are bound to exercise with greater impartiality, prudence, and caution, than that of selecting the men who are to fill the great offices of the state. These men have, oftentimes, the desti- nies of a nation in their hands. The places they fill give them a power, for good or evil, of the most momentous kind. To place, out of mere favouritism or caprice, or even from a want of sufficient care and inquiry, an unrighteous or incompetent judge in the seat of justice; an ignorant or dishonest admin- istrator in charge of the revenues of the country ; a cruel or rapacious governor at the head of a province of the kingdom ; an unskilful or inexperienced leader in the command of an array; — for rulers to do such things is to trifle with interests of the greatest magnitude, and to betray a trust of the most solemn and responsible kind. FOLLY BRINGS ITS OWN PUNISHMENT. 373 In oriental governments, such as tliose tliat must have been in Solomon's view, evils of the kind now stated were no doubt painfully common. They are the opprobrium of most oriental governments to the present hour. The caprice of an imperious despotism, or the venality of court intrigue, may be seen in such governments every day, elevating even slaves to almost a level with the throne, and reducing to obscurity and poverty the ancient chiefs of the laud. In all countries, alas ! even in those where both truth and freedom are best established, evils of the same class are very far from being unknown. When passages of Scripture that treat of such questions come before us, we are apt, perhaps, to think that because they do not very much concern us, there is hardly any need for their having been introduced into the Divine Word at all. We forget, in giving way to such a notion, that the Bible is for all men, high and low, rich and poor, young and old together; and that in consequence it must have something to say to all. God will have princes and great men to know that He is not indifferent to their conduct; that they, as much as the meanest of their people, are subject to Him; and that they cannot, with impunity, disregard His will. " He that is higher tlian the highest regardeth, and there be higher than they." This un- righteous and violent dealing of theirs shall be made to come down on their own head. For " he that diggeth a pit shall fall into it ; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him. Whoso removeth stones shall be hurt therewith ; and he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby." The first of these figurative expressions appears to refer, to such plots and intrigues as those by which violent changes, of the kind pointed out in the 7th verse, are usually brought about. Those who by such base means circumvent others, will often be found to reap as they have sowed. The measure they have meted out, is, one day, meted back to themselves. Those whom they have been laying snares to destroy at length combine against them, and into the pit which they have digged they themselves fall. 874? FOLLY CONTRASTED WITH WISDOM. The otlier figurative expressions that follow about breaking a hedge, removing stones, and cleaving wood, would seem, from the analogies of Old Testament language, to allude to the inva- sion of other men's rights and interests — to the breaking down of the old landmarks, which usage or law had set up as fences around the persons, properties, and rights, whether of the community at large or of its individual members. Hulers, who, like Ahab, in the case of Naboth, abuse their power and authority to trample on whatever stands in the way of their own arbitrary will and pleasure, will find a serpent to bite them, in the hedge they are unjustly breaking through — a stone to fall on them and bruise them, from the house they are pulling down — a splinter from the wood of the trees they have been cutting and destroying, to wound their own flesh. Even in this world, such iniquities are seldom allowed to go un- punished. Yerily there is a God that judgeth in the earth. " In the place," said the Lord, by his prophet, to Ahab — " in the place where dogs licked the blood of IsTaboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine." Nor is it merely on the great field of public and political life that this retributive justice is dealt out, and that men are often made to drink of the cup of bitterness, which they have been mingling for others. That saying of our Lord has a wide range of application — " With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be meted to you again " (Matt. vii. 2). But here the question arises — What precisely is the bearing of these various statements, upon the main theme of Solomon's discourse? That they are both true and important in them- selves, is sufficiently obvious ; but what light do they throw on the great questions of which this book treats 1 The design of the book, as we have seen, is twofold ; first, to proclaim and illus- trate the vanity of this world — the utter impossibility of finding in it a really satisfying portion; and second, to show that wisdom, heavenly wisdom, alone can guide man safely through the world's perplexities and perils, and lead him to happiness and peace. WISDOM WAITS. 375 Now, the verses we have just been considering touch, very closely, both of these jjoints. If it be so, that there is so much uncertainty and insecurity in every sphere of human life; if even those who are highest in place and power may be, without cause, suddenly reduced to poverty; if they are liable to be ruined by the intrigues of enemies, or by the mere caprice and passion of some despotic prince; if it may be their lot, any day, to exchange places with men of whom, like Job, they might be disposed to say, that once they would not have set them with the dogs of their flock ; does not all this write mockery on the riches, and grandeur, and honours of this world? Does it not prove that men had much need to seek a better and a more en- during substance ? But, again, if it be so, that the path of life is strewed so thick with perils and snares, how necessary must it be to seek the aids of a better wisdom than our own to direct us, and to keep us, from the evil that is in the world! Animated by that wisdom, the ruler himself will be taught, to beware of pursuing a policy, so false and pernicious as that which Solomon had seen under the sun. Animated by that wisdom, the subject will know how to meet the wrongs and injuries of such a policy, if he should be made the victim of it. He will learn, from this wisdom, to commit himself to Him that judgeth righteously — to remember that vengeance is the Lord's, and that He will repay ; and to wait patiently for the issue of things. It would seem to be this latter lesson, regarding the practical uses and worth of wisdom, which the 10th verse is meant to convey. Solomon had been speaking of rash and violent acts on the part of rulers — acts by which they invaded and violated old prescriptive rights — and that without regard to either prudence or justice. Such acts, he had shown, commonly bring their own punishment along with them. The ruler is, no doubt, armed with the sword. Where the word of a king is, there is power. But as Solomon had said before, "wisdom is better than strength." It is of far greater avail 37G FOLLY CONTRASTED WITH WISDOM. obstacles, and in removing difficulties, tlian mere brute force. The unskilful workman, when making little way with his blunt instrument, puts to more strength. If he insists on getting at his end by such a means, there is nothing else for him ; and yet, when he has tasked his strength to the uttermost, he, perhaps, succeeds in nothing but in exhausting himself; and, it may be, in breaking, with his rude handling, the very instrument he wields. Wisdom would suggest a different course, ^yisdom would '-whet the edge" of the blunted tool, and thereby accom- plish, with ease and safety, what mere force could never achieve. "Wisdom is profitable to direct." This is the moral of the passage. Let the ruler, therefore, who would govern with success and honour, consult this divine guide. It will remind him that rulers must be just, ruling in the fear of God; and will, thereby, restrain him from abusing his power. It will show him that the stability of his throne, and the welfare of his people, are equally concerned in his consulting, in all his policy, the great interests of justice, humanity, and truth. It will teach him that such a policy is the fine edge, that wiU cut its way through a thousand difficulties, on which mere despotism will only exhaust, and, perhaps, in the end, destroy itself By despising the counsels of wisdom, and choosing to take the other method of mere force and arbitrary power, Solomon's own son Rehoboam, lost the better part of his kingdom, and rent the tribes of Israel in twain. In the 11th and following verses, Solomon is still pursuing his forcible and graphic contrast between folly and wisdom; that he may thereby stir men up to eschew the one, and earnestly to seek after and cultivate the other. He had spoken in the pre- ceding context of the practical inefficiency of the fool — of his utter inaptitude for any useful work. Now he proceeds to notice the pernicious and senseless character of his talk : his words are as unprofitable and mischievous as his deeds. It belongs to every creature to act according to its nature. The raven croaks, the dog snarls, the wasp stings, the serpent, unless THE WORDS OF THE WISE ARE GRACIOUS. 877 it has been tamed by the enchanter, bites. And even so it belongs to the fool to be a babbler — to annoy and wound every one he meets, with some rude and offensive speech. In reality he is no better than the serpent. He cares not, and often seems hardly to know when, or whom, he hurts. Folly is of various kinds. There is the folly of mere silliness and imbecility, which, though it may be very tii^esome and very useless, is not usually capable of doing much harm. But there is also the folly of ignorance, and presumption, and recklessness; the folly of petu- lance and narrow-mindedness ; the folly of a captious, peevish, and censorious humour; and, worse than all, the folly of an impure or malevolent heart, of a profane and ungodly mind. It is not too much to say of those whose speech such folly animates and seasons, that they are no better than serpents. Their tongue, as the apostle James testifies, is a world of iniquity, that setteth on fire the course of nature, and is itself set on fire of hell. Like the mouth of the serpent, their mouth also is full of deadly poison. Their hard speeches, their filthiness, and foolish talking and jesting, which are not convenient, inflame the worst passions of the human heart. They pollute the minds of companions: they irritate and alienate the feelings of friends; they break the peace of families; they breed enmities, and strifes, and divisions in society, and in the church of Christ. The folly, therefore, of which Solomon means to speak — the folly that comes out through the tongue — well deserves the utmost of that censure, with which it is here condemned. To render its odiousness still more manifest, he goes on in the 12tli verse to set it over against the speech of the wise man: " The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious," They are kindly, amiable, conciliatory. They have a winning j^ower about them, that finds its way into the heart. They disarm opposition by their gentleness; they beget love by their affectionateness; they allay excitement by their mildness; they command respect by their judiciousness and propriety; they inspire confidence by their truthfulness and honesty. The gracious desires, feelings, 24 378 FOLLY CONTRASTED WITH WISDOM. aud thoughts, which God's Holy Spirit has breathed into the wise man's own soul, become so transfused into his speech that it cannot be otherwise than gracious. His conversation is alway with grace — seasoned with it, as with salt. What was said of Job will be said of him : " Behold thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands. Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees" (iv. 3, 4). He suifers no corrupt communication to proceed out of his mouth, but only that which is good to the use of edifying, and which ministers grace to the hearers. How opposite to all this is the speech of the fool ! " The lips of a fool will swallow up himself." Not only is what he utters irksome, unprofitable, pernicious to others; it is, not unfrequently, the means of his own ruin. As the Psalmist says, when speaking of such men as he, " They make their own tongue to fall upon themselves" (Ixiv. 8). It was the folly of Herod that made him utter the rash promise, which stained his soul with the crime of miirder. It was the folly of another Herod that prompted the profane and self-glorifying oration, which drew down upon him the vengeance of the Almighty. Thus it is that "a fool's mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul" (Pr. xviii. 7). " The beginning of the words of his mouth," Solomon goes on to say, " is foolishness, and the end of his talk is mischievous madness;" — the tendency, that is to say, of the fool's discourse is from bad to worse. From the very first there is nothing good in it. It is the outflow of a vain and frivolous, or of a sordid and selfish, or of an earthly and sensual, or of an irreligious and infidel mind. It aims at nothing that is excellent or noble — at nothing that can either purify the heart or reform the life. And how much of such talk is there to be met with, in almost all the society in which men daily mingle! How much that has in it the foolishness of mere idle, time- wasting, mind-enfeebling gossip! How much that has in it, the worse foolishness of envy and evil speaking! How little that has anything really fitted to minister solid instruction to the understanding, or godly edifying to the WISDOM IS SLOW TO SPEAK. 379 heart ! But to aggravate this evil, the words that begin in simple foolishness, end, not unfrequentlj, in something of a still darker and more disgraceful kind. Especially is this to be looked for, when men meet for no rational end, but only for the low and degrading gratifications of the flesh — for feasting, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and such like. How truly may the end of such men's talk be spoken of as "mischievous madness!" It was doubtless with reference to the tendency of such indulgences to fire the blood, and to unloose the tongue, and to beget " mischievous mad- ness," that Solomon said elsewhere, " Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." And hence these warning words, "Who hath woe, who hath sorrow, who hath contentions, who hath babbling, who hath wounds without cause, who hath redness of eyes ? They that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine." " Look not," he therefore adds, " upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder" (Pro v. xxiv. 29-31). "Let every man," says the apostle James, "be swift to hear, slow to speak." Referring to the same subject, in the book of Proverbs, Solomon takes occasion to observe that "he that refraineth his lips is wise." It is one of the marks of true wisdom, that is, to be sparing of speech; and not to be uttering mere random thoughts and hasty opinions, which the mind has never maturely considered or calmly weighed. A wise man has respect to the proprieties of time and place in expressing his views. He is restrained, moreover, by a sense of duty, both to others and to himself, from pronouncing judgment on matters on which, it either does not belong to him to interfere, or in regard to which, he is not in possession of materials for coming to an intelligent and dispassionate conclusion. There is no doubt, as is said elsewhere in this book, " a time to speak ;" and when that time comes the wise man will declare himself honestly and faithfully. If it be a time that calls for the utterance of 380 FOLLY CONTRASTED WITH WISDOM. what he knows will be distasteful to others, he will come out with it notwithstanding, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear. But he remembers, what the fool is sure to forget, that there is a "time to keep silence;" and, while that time lasts, he will not suffer himself to be hurried, or provoked, into any rash and unseasonable utterance. He sets a watch upon the door of his lips, lest he should speak unadvisedly — lest he shoiild offend with his tongue. It is altogether otherwise with the fool. With him it is always a time to speak, as is testified in the 14th verse of the jjassage before us. " A fool also is full of words." He is continually talking; his mouth is never shut. He is like the empty drum that sounds at the lightest touch. His self- conceit j)ersuades him that he is competent to decide, off-hand, matters on Avhich deeper, more thoughtful, more conscien- tious minds are slow to say anything at all. "A man can- not tell what shall be ; and what shall be after him, who can tell him?" These are difficulties which wiser men feel and acknowledge. Because of this uncertainty and obscurity, in which human affairs and the course of events are so much involved, it is very often hard to say what view should be taken of particular occurrences or proceedings. The wise man waits for more light. The case is not ripe for judgment — he can as yet neither approve nor disapprove; he can neither acquit nor condemn ; and accordingly he refrains his lijDS. Not so the fool : the restraints which modesty and diffidence impose on others, are unknown to him. He is the first, the longest, and the loudest in every discussion; and the most peremptory and absolute, in laying down, what he holds to be, the law of the case. This seems to be, the most natural and satisfactory interpre- tation, of the 14th verse. Other constructions, indeed, have been put upon it. According to one of these it has been assumed that Solomon, after characterizing the fool as one " who is full of words," intends the remainder of the verse as a specimen of his folly — of his loose, rambling, disjointed speech. But the FOLLY IS FLUENT. 381 obvious and fatal objection to tliis construction is, that the remainder of the verse is not a specimen of foolish speech. It embodies, on the contrary, grave and important truths — truths wliich Solomon himself had previously set forth, as tlie con- clusions of solid wisdom. Another and more plausible view, of this second part of the verse, is that which goes to regard it as a description of the fool's fluent and copious talk. Full as he is of words, no one can tell what to make of his meaning. His speech is so incoherent, so irrelevant, so incongruous, that no one could venture to say what will come next, or to what con- clusion, when he shall have finished his discourse, he means his hearers to come. There may be ingenuity in this conjecture; but it is too far-fetched to carry conviction to the mind of any sober interpreter of the verse. It would, moreover, be putting a meaning on the expressions in question, altogether at variance with that which they uniformly bear, when used in other parts of this book. Upon the whole, therefore, the view first sug- gested appears to be much the most preferable. If the fool has few ideas, few well-considered thoughts, he is at least " full of w^ords;" he is not afraid to enter on any subject, however profound. Calmer, larger, more reflecting minds pause : they are arrested by the complexities of the subject: there are things connected with it which have not yet come to light : Providence has not yet cleared it up. They cannot tell how it may appear when it has been more thoroughly investigated or more fully developed ; they are therefore withheld, by their imperfect knowledge, from saying anything. Thus understood, the latter part of the verse gives prodigious point and force to the former part of it; it presents that very contrast between wisdom and folly which runs through the whole passage to which this verse belongs; and, in particular, when thus understood, it con- veys this important practical lesson — to beware of pronouncing hastily on matters which are not fully before us. By neglecting this salutary lesson, men are every day involving themselves and others in mischief. They want either the sense, or the 382 FOLLY CONTKASTED WITH WISDOM. patience, or tlie magnanimity, or the common fairness, to wait till all the materials for a judgment are before them. Which- ever of these defects it be, that prompts them to grasp prema- turely at a conclusion, they are equally guilty of folly in adopt- ing that conclusion. Nor is the folly the less, but the greater, if it be the folly, not of mere ignorance and incapacity, but of prejudice or passion, of self-interest or self-will. In the 15th verse, a still further illustration is given, of the way in which the fool becomes a nuisance. " The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city." The fool is a helpless being, and is con- tinually making himself a burden to his neighbours. His inap- titude for the practical business of life had been already set forth, by the forcible figurative expression, which represented him as a man whose heart or mind " is at his left hand ; " — as a man, that is, who, when the moment for action arrives, is always at a loss what to do. Next, the annoyance and the injury he inflicts by his unprofitable or mischievous talk, have been not less impressively described by comparing his words to the bite of a serpent, and his mouth to a pit that often swallows up him- self. At one time his rash and oifensive utterances are drop- ping like a poison into the ears and hearts of those around him; at another, they are provoking consequences, of which he becomes himself the victim. Such a man cannot fail to be a source of vexation and trouble, wherever he comes. Whatever he takes in hand is mismanaged. His very labour "wearieth" every one around him. He is a hinderauce, and not a help. He needs so much watching and directing, in doing anything he under- takes, that those who have the misfortune to employ him, would gladly be rid of him; — it would cost them less trouble and anxiety to do the work themselves. " He knoweth not how to go to the city." The phrase is evidently a proverbial one, in- tended to denote extreme incapacity. Of all roads, the one that leads to the city, is usually the most patent and familiar. Every rustic, in all the country round, is acquainted with it. A child THE FOOL LOSES HIS WAY. 388 would not lose his way on so common a track. No figure, there- fore, could be better fitted to convey the idea of utter useless- ness, than this of not " knowing how to go to the city." It is true that there are men, who are in this pitiable position, from a natural and inherent weakness of mind. Such persons are the objects of compassion rather than of blame. It is not to be sujjposed, however, that it is of such mere witlings Solomon designs to speak. The fool he has in view is a culpable fool — is one whose folly has much more of the moral than of the in- tellectual, in the defect which it indicates and implies. He is one whose heart is much further wrong than his head. The tongue of a mere imbecile cannot bite like a serpent. His words can never assume the grave character of mischievous mad- ness. Solomon's fool is not so much a silly man as a sinful man ; not so much a weak man as a wicked man. And most worthy it is to be continually borne in mind, that in the highest and tiTiest sense of the word, all wicked men are fools. There is a city — a mighty city — a glorious city — to which not one of them knows how to go ; and that is the new Jerusalem, the city of the living God. Not that the way to it is hard to find. On the contrary, the way is so plain that the wayfaring man, though intellectually a fool, shall not err therein. The way to it is like that which led to the ancient cities of refuge in Judea. All along there are finger-posts to point out its course; and over every one of them the words in clear and most legible characters are written — " This is the way, walk ye in it" (Is. xxx. 21). And yet with all these facilities, the fool of whom Solomon, in common with all Scripture, speaks, knoweth not how to go to this city. Much as he may possess of the wisdom of tliis world, he is not wise unto salvation. His folly blinds him both to the worth of that salvation, and to the way that leads to it. Seeing he sees not, and hearing he hears not, neither does he understand. And yet till he come to Christ, who is Himself the way to the heavenly city, the fool can never become truly wise. But let his eyes be opened to know the Lord : let him once pass through 384 FOLLY CONTRASTED WITH WISDOM. the strait gate and enter on the narrow way, and from that day he will be another man. The venom of the serpent will no longer drop from his tongue to poison the minds of others; his lips will no longer open as a pit, to swallow up himself. He will thencefortli be less full of words, and more full of thoughts. And his discourse, instead of beginning in foolishness and ending in mischievous madness, will begin with the humble confession of his own unworthiness, and end with praise of the goodness and grace of God. From that day forward, his labour will cease to weary his neighbours and friends. " Diligent in business, fer- vent in spirit, serving the Lord," will henceforth be his motto and his rule; and men will begin to take knowledge of him, as a new man — as one of those who has been with Jesus, and who has been learning of Him who is the Wisdom of God. The folly which Solomon had thus been at so much pains to expose and reprobate, while it is pernicious in all, is pre- eminently so in the case of a ruler of the people. Already he had pointed out errors which he had seen proceeding from rulers; and had adverted to the perilous consequences to themselves, which these errors seldom fail to produce. In returning, at the 16th verse, to the case of those who occupy the exalted and responsible station of rulers, his object is to notice, not the injury to themselves, but the injury to their country, of which folly in them is sure to be the cause. "Woe to thee, land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning !" In those eastern countries, more immediately contemplated by Solomon, where civil liberty was unknown, and where everything, as regarded the character of the government and the political welfare of the people, depended on the personal character and qualities of the reigning sovereign, it was usually a great calamity for any nation to have a child for its king. The period of the royal minority, was generally one of great misrule. The reins of power not being in responsible hands, but held, perhaps usurped, for the time, by intriguers and adventurers, whose sole aim was to make the most of their brief tenure of authority in A FOOLISH KING IS A CURSE. 385 the way of agi^randizing themselves, the land was made the victim of lawless and cruel oppression. It would hardly seem, however, as if the term child, in this passage, were meant to be quite literally understood. The 17th verse is evidently the antithesis of the lOth; and, therefore, if the word child in the 16th verse had been intended to describe a state of nonage, its opposite in the 17th verse would have been some expression significant of mature years. Such, how- ever, is not the case. " Blessed art thou, O land," Solomon continues, when proceeding to exhibit the reverse of the lamentable state of things depicted in the 1 6th verse, — " Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is" — not a man of full age, but when he is " the son of nobles ;" that is, when he is a noble-minded prince — a prince competent and qualified to rule. E/cad in the light of this contrast, cliild must obviously mean a child in capacity — a silly Absalom, or a self-willed E-ehoboam — a man destitute of the gravity, and intelligence, and experience, and still more destitute of the high sense of responsibility and duty which true wisdom inspires; a man more taken up about his own amusements and pleasures, than with the aflfairs and interests of his kingdom. In such hands everything must speedily fall into inevitable disorder. The courtiers would be sure, with their customary servility, to copy the idleness and loose living of the king. It is this, no doubt, that is pointed at by the "princes eating" — that is, feasting — "in the morning." The morning in all countries, and especially in the East, was devoted by princes to public afiiiirs. Then it was that, as judges, they sat in the gate, to hear and determine the causes and questions, which the people might have to bring before them; or that they assembled in the council chambers to deliberate on the great matters of the state. If, instead of being thus employed, the morning — even the morning — was given up to sloth and self-indulgence — to feasting and revelry — alas for the land ! All things, under such mis- government, would soon be out of joint. The ill example of the court would ere long contaminate society. The subject would o8G FOLLY CONTRASTED WITH WISDOM. not be slow to imitate the ruler in disregarding the obligations of his position. Dissoluteness of manners, social disorders, personal crimes, would multij^ly on every hand; until at length, by civil broils, or by the invasion of foreign foes taking advan- tage of the nation's weakness, the kingdom might be rent asunder, and covered with desolation and ruin. In contrast with this picture of the unhappy condition of a people whose king is a fool, Solomon next sketches the happier lot of that country whose king is wise. A king, the son of nobles, as already noticed, is one possessing true nobility of mind. To be merely of high lineage would, of itself, be no security for the possession of those qualities of which Solomon here evidently intends to speak. Neither virtue nor wisdom is the necessary accompaniment of high birth. In all periods of the world's history, from Solomon's time until now, it has been a thing only too common to find far-descended princes who had nothing else but their pedigree of which to boast — whose personal qualities were as low and base, as their an- cestry was illustrious and exalted. Wisdom is not hereditary — it does not run in the blood — as Solomon's own son suffi- ciently proved. It is God's gift; and he who possesses it, whatever may be his parentage, possesses the truest nobility. Where such a king reigns, men of like spirit will be gathered arouud him. His princes Avill "eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness." Their time will not be wasted in sloth and self-indulgence. They will not, like gross and grovelling sensualists, live to eat; but, temperate in all things, they will eat to live. To acquit themselves of their sacred and responsible trust, will be their great concern; and under their active, energetic, enlightened, and, above all, God-fearing administration, the land will be truly blessed. Far as earthly princes may come short of this high standard, it is our comfort and our confidence to know that there is one Ruler, in whose government it is perfectly and gloriously realized. "The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice" (Psalm xcvii. 1). THE FOLLY OF SLOTHFULNESS. 887 In proportion as His kingdom is extended and established in tliis fallen world, shall righteousness run down our streets as waters, and judgment as a mighty river. '-'In his days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth." (Psalm Ixxii. 7). Yes; let us be assured of this, that in nothing but in the universal diffusion of the gospel of Christ, can we ever hope to see an end put to the oppression and mis- government, under which so many nations groan. In the 1 6tli verse it would seem to be the personal profligacy of princes, to which reference is chiefly made, as the source of woe to the land over which they rule. But there are other ways in which they may abuse their office and injure their people. " By much slothfulness the building decayeth ; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through." A kingdom, like a house, needs constant repair. It is only by constant care and watchful supervision, and the timely applica- tion of the needful remedies, that its institutions and interests can be preserved from falling into confusion and decay. Mere neglect on the part of its governors will, of itself, suffice ere long to insure the decline and fall, of even the most powerful king- dom. And while this pregnant saying of Solomon, contained in the 18th verse, holds true on the great scale of a nation, it holds equally true on the small scale of a family, or of an indi- vidual's personal afiairs. "He that is slothful in his work," says Solomon elsewhere, "is brother to him that is a great waster" (Prov. xviii. 9). " I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding," says he yet again, illustrating the consequences of this fatal habit into which so many fall, "and lo! it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then T saw, and considered it well; I looked upon it and received instruction. 'Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.' So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth : and thy want as an armed man " (xxiv. 30-34). Let it be understood, then, 388 FOLLY CONTRASTED WITH WISDOM. that slothfulness belongs to the fool. It is not a fault merely, but in God's siajht a sjreat sin. And therefore is it one of those counsels of wisdom which the inspired King of Israel is here laying down, to shun slothfulness if we would desire to prosper, either for time or for eternity. Let the young especially be on their guard against it. It is an insidious disease, wliich creeps upon those who do not watch against it by insensible degrees, until they are at length so drugged by its Lethean opiate as to become, in the end, incapable of sustained effort in any work or service whatever, whether secular or sacred — whether in the things of man or in the things of God. There can be no doubt that the two evils that have thus been specified, very often go together. Those who " eat in the morn- ing" — who give themselves up to sensual indulgence — soon lose all relish for active exertion in any department of labour. A life of mere pleasure is sure to breed slothfulness; and sloth- fulness, in its turn, never fails to cultivate a taste for debasing pleasures. 'It is perhaps by keeping this connection between these two vices in view, that we shall best understand the some- what enigmatical statement of the 19th verse — " A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry, but money answereth all things." It is as if Solomon had said, It is true that a life of pleasm'e may have its transient enjoyments, such as they are. It may yield mirth and laughter for the moment. But mark, at what a cost. The wastefulness, the neglect, the slothfulness, inseparable from such a life, are meanwhile consuming the resources of the nation. Its revenues are impaired. Its means of upholding the interests, the power, the honour of the king- dom, are consequently dissipated. And be it remembered, that while feasting and wine may procure such poor and paltry benefits as senseless laughter and idle mirth, money answereth all things. The building is decaying, and the house is dropping through for want of means to uphold and repair it; but the means no longer exist. The revenue, — the money of the na- tion, — which would have met every exigency, and supplied every WISDOM TEACHES DILIGENCE. 889 material want, is lost; and your feasting and wine have thus made you powerless to arrest the decay and ruin of the realm ! We are not to suppose, therefore, that Solomon intends here to set up money as the panacea for all human ills. He is to be under- stood as speaking of it simply as an important means, necessary to the stability of empires and to the subsistence of families — a means which those who give themselves up to sloth and self- indulgence, cannot hope long to possess. Their luxury and laughter will end, by and bye, in want and misery. The love of money is the root of all evil. It is not, it cannot be, that base passion Solomon designs to commend. His design is to commend industry and frugality, diligence and temperance, as essential in all ranks of life, — whether high or humble, — to human happiness and welfare. One other verse of this passage remains; and its connection with the foregoing context it is not difficult to trace. The errors Solomon had pointed out as proceeding from the ruler, and the terrible woes that have come on so many lands through the vices and misgovernment of their kings, might too readily prompt feelings of indignation and disloyalty among their suffering subjects. To give expression to these feelings, however, might be only to imperil their own safety, without effecting any practical good. The caution, therefore, here subjoined, is one which the very nature of the preceding discourse rendered pecu- liarly appropriate and necessary. In all countries, and especially under despotic governments, the ruler has long ears. Even a whisper of discontent or disaffection, is sure to reach the sove- reign, who knows that he does not reign in the hearts of his people. The very consciousness he has of the oppressive nature of his own rule, and of the disfavour in which he is held, make him jealous and suspicious. His emissaries are everywhere on the watch to detect the first symptom of discontent; ofiicial spies and servile sycophants will be always at hand, to catch up the slightest indication of the smouldering fire, which he knows must be gathering beneath his feet. 390 FOLLY CONTRASTED WITH WISDOM. It is a mistake, I apprehend, to suppose that in this 20th verse Solomon is intending to teach, or to refer at all, to the duty of subjects to their sovereign. Had this been his purpose, he would doubtless have spoken in quite other terms. He would have exhorted the subject to refrain from cursing the king, not because there might be danger in doing so, but because it is wrong to do so ; because the king's oflSce, so long as he holds it, entitles him, in so far as submission to a hischer rule allows it, to deference and obedience. The fact tliat Solomon makes no allusion at all to any considerations of that kind, but puts his exhortation entirely on the footing of prudence and caution, seems plainly to imply that he is dealing merely with that aspect of the question, of a subject's relation to the ruler, that was actually in hand. " Curse not the king ; no not in thy thought : and curse not the rich in thy bed-chamber ; for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter." The subject, who accepts the counsel of wisdom, will not allow the wrongs done by the ruler, to hurry him into a rash and hasty utterance, that may serve no other end but to compromise himself. Even where wrong is done, men must not take the law into their own hands. Let the people of God especially learn to commit their way, in such cir- cumstances, unto the Lord, and to wait patiently for Him. He that believeth shall not make haste. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord. His peace shall be as a river. The place of his defence shall be the munition of rocks. He shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever. For " as the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about them that fear Him, from henceforth even for ever!" (Ps. cxxv. 2). BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS. 391 CHAPTER XVII. WOKKS OF FAITH AND LABOUKS OF LOVE. " Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight ; for thou knowest not Avhat evil shall be upon the earth. If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth : and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be. He that observeth the wind shall not sow ; and he that regarueth the clouds shall not reap. As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child ; even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all. In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand ; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be aUke good." — Eccles. xi. 1-6. SOLOMON is now drawing towards the close of this inspired discourse. In doing so his observations begin to converge, more and more, upon the main and leading truth which, all along, he has had it especially in view to illustrate and enforce. It has been his aim to show, what is that good for the sons of men, which they should do all the days of their life. To make his argument more complete and conclusive, he has tried the ques- tion at issue, both in the negative and in the positive form. On the one side he has been at pains to prove, that man's chief good is not to be found, in loving and serving the creature. On the other side he has been at equal pains to prove, that man's chief good is to be found, in loving and serving God. To seek it in the one way, he has demonstrated to be the course of folly. To seek it in the other way, he has demonstrated to be the course of true and heavenly wisdom. In speaking of these two opposite courses, he has taken occasion to enter somewhat at large, into 392 WORKS OF FAITH A^^D LABOURS OF LOVE. the subject of wisdom and folly. He has held up wisdom to admiration and honour, hy expatiating on its inherent excellence and worth; and by pointing to the many great and blessed consequences which ensue from following its dictates. He has held up folly to abhorrence and shame, by exposing its native odiousness, and by pointing out the ruinous results to which it inevitably leads. In now retiring from that larger field of discussion, it is only to return more directly to the matter in hand. Henceforth he will fasten our attention, immediately and exclusively, on the great lesson which this whole book is designed to teach. He will tell us plainly and finally what is our chief good. As regards worldly tilings, he will state distinctly what is the right use to make of them; and, as regards divine things, he will declare solemnly, and once for all, that they do constitute the only satisfying portion for man. His ultimate decision on the former of these two particulars is contained in the passage at present before us ; and to which accordingly we now advance. In regard to this question, — of the right use to be made of worldly things, — Solomon had glanced more than once at the true answer to it, in several preceding chapters ; and more especially in the 1 2th verse of chap, iii., where he had expressly and em- phatically testified that in worldly things there is no good for a man but this — "to rejoice and to do good in his life." To hoard them up, for a future which is all buried in uncertainty and darkness; or for successors who may abuse them to their own hurt and to the injury of others, he had by many striking con- siderations and examples shown to be the veriest vanity. To lay them out for the gratification of pride and ambition, or of sensual self-indulgence, he had proved by reasons and by facts equally cogent, to be, if possible, a greater and more pernicious error still ; issuing, as it must inevitably do, in nothing but dis- appointment and misery. What then 1 Are worldly possessions to be thrown away as being only either a useless incumbrance or a perilous snare? Is the lesson on this subject which Solomon, BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS. 393 speaking by inspiration, means to teach, that those who would be wise must impose upon themselves vows of poverty, and become ascetics and anchorites ? By no means. This would be to follow not wisdom, but only another of the many shapes and forms of folly. Worldly possessions, be they less or more, are talents, neither to be wasted in riotous living, nor, by covetous hoarding, to be buried unprofitably in the earth. Like all the other talents which God may be pleased to bestow upon us, they are to be laid out for His glory; so that when He cometh to reckon with us for them. He may receive His own with usury. Thus are we to use them. " Oast thy bread upon the waters : for thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight : for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth." Bread is evidently to be understood here as bread-corn. The original word is so translated in Isaiah (xxviii. 28), where it obviously can have no other meaning. " Bread-corn," it is there said, " is bruised, because he will not ever be threshing it." It is true the husbandman does not usually cast his bread-corn or seed-corn "upon the waters," but upon the ground. For this reason it has been suggested by some critics on the pas- sage that, instead of " upon the waters," the expression should be rendered " before the waters;" that is, that the seed should be sown at the proper season of the year, before the rains fall ; so that it may be ready to receive the quickening impulse which these rains will communicate, when God visiteth the earth and watereth it, and maketh it soft with showers, and blesseth the springing thereof. But the difficulty, fijom which this forced and unnatural translation seeks to escape, is founded on an obvious mis- take. It is not, at all, Solomon's meaning, that we must be careful to seize the precise moment at which it becomes fit and seasonable to sow our seed. Ilis assumption, on the contrary, is that, in regard to this kind of sowing of which he intends to speak, we really do not, and often cannot, know the fitting time ; and his very object in making use of the figurative exhortation here 25 394 WORKS OF FAITH AND LABOURS OF LOVE. employed is to show, that we ought not to be deterred from sowing the seed, by the fact of our not knowing exactly what is to become of it. It is well known, indeed, that in southern and eastern coun- tries there are departments of husbandry, in which the very thing here pointed at is done, and must be done, if there is to be any hope of a harvest at all. The seed-corn of the rice-plant may, without any great or unusual freedom of language, be said to be " cast upon the waters ;" the flooding of the fields being an indis- pensable preparative, for the sowing of this kind of grain. And even if the uncertainty which undoubtedly exists, as to whether this particular species of grain was in use, in the days of Solo- mon, either in Judea or in any of the adjacent countries, should preclude the idea of its being here pointed at ; it is by no means unlikely that the well-known peculiarity of Egyptian agriculture, where the inundation of the Nile has scarcely subsided when the seed is sown, may well enough have sufficed to suggest this figure of casting the bread-corn upon the waters. Such, at least, is a view that has been very commonly adopted in regard to the origin of this figurative expression. But, after all, there is really no need to seek, in any usage of actual husbandry, a groundwork for this particular form of speech. It is quite possible, perhaps even probable, that Solomon, in employing it, had no reference to any real usage of agriculture whatever; and that what he intended was simply this — by a bold and striking figure to illustrate the spirit of confiding trust and free-handed liberality, in which benevo- lence and charity ought to be exercised. What could seem more rash and imi^rovident on the part of a husbandman than to be casting his bread-corn upon the bosom of a river, lake, or sea ! Be it so. Literally understood, the act might be a foolish one ; but not in the sense in which it is here meant to be taken. He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord. The kindness done will not be thrown away. The means expended in doing the generous deed may be large, and little good may seem, at the time, to liave come of it; but let not this thought discourage the THE SURE REWARD. 305 generous heart or paralyze the generous hand. " Thou shalt find it after many days." Sordid and short-sighted worldliness may condemn the outlay, as uncalled for or excessive. "Why," it may say, like Judas, " was not the ointment sold for so much, and given to the poor?" But there is One who will judge otherwise. Selfish men may object; but "God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have showed toward His name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister" (Heb. X. 10). He that soweth bountifully is often made, even in this present world, to reap also bountifully. "The liberal deviseth liberal things ; and by liberal things shall he stand" (Isaiah xxxii. 8). " Give, and it shall be given unto you ; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again" (Luke vi. 38). There are principles in human nature, and laws in the moral government of God, which secure that result — principles which abundantly vindicate the truth of that seeming paradox, " There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth ; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty" (Prov. xi. 24). This, then, is one reason to encourage a large-hearted liberality in dispensing our worldly substance, that, in so far as it is done in a right spirit — done with an eye to God's glory — it is sure, in one way or another, and at one time or another, to bring a blessing. But Solomon enforces the exercise of this beneficence by a further consideration still — namely this, that amid the great and continual uncertainties of human life, the laying out our money in acts of beneficence, may turn out to be both the best, and safest, investment we could possibly have found for it. "Giving a portion to seven, and also to eight" — responding, so to speak, to every call of distress that reaches us — never growing weary of giving — being ready, like the widow of Sarepta, to share even our last meal with the poor and needy, — to practise liberality on a scale like this may look like mere improvidence ; 396 WORKS OF FAITH AND LABOURS OF LOVE. and yet, after all, it may turn out to be the truest prudence — to be the very best and wisest thing we could possibly have done. We know not what evil shall be upon the earth. A state of things may speedily come round in which our money, however securely ' and carefully we may have kept it, may be of no avail to deliver us out of the difficulty or danger into which we have fallen. ■ During the late appalling outbreak, for example, in our Indian empire, of what service was wealth, or rank, or former power and influence to deliver from the enemy, those who had fallen into their cruel hands? There are instances recorded in connection with that direful history, in which money was offered, almost without limit, for bare life, and yet rejected with scorn — rejected with the terrific reply, We want not their money but their blood. And yet at the very time that this fiend-like ferocity was in full play, it is well known there were cases, not a few, in which the memory of acts of kindness, proved stronger than the thirst for blood — cases in which the recollection of such kindness not only turned the sword aside from the intended victim, but raised it in his defence, and produced the most determined and devoted efforts, at all hazards, to save him. In such an occurrence we see, at least, one way, in which these significant words of Solomon may be made good, " Give a portion to seven, and also to eight ; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth." There is, however, another, and, in a country like ours, a much more common way, in which the reason here assigned for the exercise of a generous liberality, may come to be exemplified. The means we have of exercising it now, may not continue. Evil days may arrive that will strip us bare, and leave us, it may be, largely dependent on the kindly feelings and good offices of others. If, in the days of our prosperity, we see our brother have need, and shut up our bowels of compassion from him, what can we expect, should a season of adversity overtake us, but to reap as we have sown — to meet with the same want of sympathy we had ourselves displayed 1 It was to provide for such an emer- gency, that the unjust steward conferred his dishonest favours, on THE SURE REWARD. 397 the debtors of his master. " I am resolved," said he, "what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship they may receive me iuto their houses" (Luke xvi. 4). But that very wickedness of his, illustrates the power and efficacy of the course, which the words of Solomon recommend. He who, when Providence smiles upon him, gives portions to seven, and also to eight, is not likely to be left unpitied and unfriended should he come to be himself in want. Not, indeed, that he is to dispense his bounties, under the influence of any such interested motive. He is to do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; but just because he has thought of nothing, in bestowing his bounty, but of doing good, his bounty will come into more grateful remem- brance in the day of his own calamity. Selfish and unthankful as human nature is, it is not often that true-hearted, consistent, considerate kindness is altogether forgotten. The man who practises that kindness most assiduously and most generously when his own cup is running over, will be found to have been taking the very best and strongest security for having his cup replenished by others when, in some evil day, his own resources are found to fail. Even if his former beneficence should not be remembered by others as it ought to be, it will be an unspeakable solace, in the midst of subsequent misfortunes, to remember it himself. On the contrary, how must it aggravate the unhappiness of the selfish man — the man whose love of money would not suffer him to open his heart to any call or claim, whether of temporal or of spiritual destitution — to think, in the day of his calamity, that his riches have made for themselves wings and have flown away, without having done any real good either to himself or to others ! Might not the events of the late commercial crisis read, on this subject, a lesson to multitudes all over the world. Even a tithe of the thousands they have lost, had it been wisely and seasonably expended in works of philanthropy and piety, might have been the means of wiping away many a tear, and of soothing many an aching heart; nay, of saving, it may be, some soul 398 WORKS OF FAITH AND LABOURS OF LOVE. from deatli. But they grudged even a farthing of their means for sucli objects as these. Perhaps they had been excusing themselves on the plea, that they were not yet rich enough to begin to give away — that they could not yet afford to set apart a portion of their substance to meet the claims either of humanity or religion. When their possessions should become more ample they would perhaps have something to spare, but, meanwhile, they had no portions to give — not to say to eight, or to seven, but even to one. So they may have reasoned then ; but what think they of that reasoning now? The money is gone, and with it the opportunity of doing the good which once it placed in their power. They have lost both ; and let them be assured there is a day coming when the discovery will be made that the latter loss is the greater loss of the two. *'Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are coriiipted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered ; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. . . . Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter" (James v. 1-3, 5). If, then, any one should ask in what circumstances he is to practise this beneficence, the answer is — Just as soon and as often as you have the means of doing it. "If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth." Take a lesson from the clouds. Do as they do. When they have sucked up, into their spongy folds, the moist vapours of the deep, they do not keep these watery treasures shut up within their own dark bosoms. They let them drop, now here, now there, upon the pastures of the wilderness; and thus do they make "the little hills to rejoice on every side;" and thus it is that, through their unconscious agency, "God visiteth the earth and watereth it," and crowns the year with His goodness. In that beautiful and wonderful economy of the material world. He maketh "His sun to rise on the evil and on THE FULL CLOUD DROPS THE llAIN. 399 tlie good, and sendetli rain on the just and on the unjust ;" and thereby teacheth us that if we would be the children of our Fatlier which is in heaven, we must imitate llis goodness; we must study, through grace, to be "merciful as our Father also is merciful," and then shall our "reward be great, and we shall be the children of the Highest: for He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil" (Luke vi, 35, &c.) A cloud full of rain, and yet leaving the earth beneath it parched and desolate, would be an anomaly in the natural world ; and is not a griping, narrow -sou led, selfish rich man an anomaly of the same kind? God has given him the means of making "his very paths drop fatness." He has put it in such a man's power in a thousand ways to benefit his fellowmen; to relieve want — to foster industry — to help those who may be struggling with difficulties — to promote, in so far, at least, as the outward means and agencies are concerned, the furtherance in this fallen world of the kingdom of Christ. In what manifest opposition, then, to the ways and to the will of God does such a man live, when no drop of this plenteous rain is emptied upon the thirsty earth ! when he lives only to hoard and heap up his accumulating treasures, or to lay them out only for the gratifica- tion of his own vanity and ambition, or of his sensual ease and pleasure. Such a man is a kind of monstrosity in the moral world — fit to be the object of no other feelings than those of contempt and pity, on the part of his fellows; and certain to inherit the displeasure and wrath of Him, whose tender mercies are over all His other works. It can hardly be doubted that the view now given of the first clause of this 3d verse is the true one. So understood, it simply illustrates, by a beautiful example, borrowed from the economy of nature, the duty which the immediately pre- ceding verses enjoin. The bearing, however, of the second clause of this 3d verse is not quite so obvious — "And if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there shall it be." Upon the whole 400 WORKS OF FAITH AND LABOURS OF LOVE. the interpretation, which appears to be at once the most na- tural and the most satisfactory, is that which construes these words as a warning to beware of deferring and putting off, what is our present duty. We are not to say, in answer to Solomon's exhortation to the exercise of a promj^t and liberal .benevolence, that the fitting time has not come, or that the proper occasion or object has not yet presented itself. Just so it is that selfish- ness deals, with the demands addressed to it. It will not venture to say, that in no case, and at no time, will it give anything to relieve the wants of the poor, or to further the cause of Christ. But there is always something wrong about the particular claim actually made. It comes from a wrong quarter; or it is made in an improper spirit; or it is in favour of some enterprise which the selfish man disapproves; or it finds him pressed by other demands, so that he cannot afi'ord to give anything. Self- ishness is never at a loss for an excuse. It deals with any call for money as the Roman governor did with Paul's faithful and therefore distasteful preaching — ''Go thy way," it says to every petitioner, " for this time ; when I have a convenient season I will call for thee." Be it so ; but meanwhile the Lord of the vineyard, coming again and again to this barren tree seeking fruit, and finding none, at length, in righteous displeasure, issues the command — " Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground;" and where it falls " there it shall be." Death brings the period of probation to an end; and after death is the judgment. The design, in short, of this abrupt reference to the fall of a tree, and to its remaining precisely in tlie place where it fell, seems to be meant to speak in substantially the same language which Solomon employed in a previous chapter, when he said, " What- soever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest" (ix. 10). What immediately follows in the next and succeeding verses, is, to say the least of it, altogether in harmony with this interpre- tation; if we may not venture to go further; and to say, that it LOVE WORKS AND TRUSTS. 401 conclusively confirms it. In the next verse, Solomon begins by a series of most forcible and felicitous illustrations, to expose the folly of those jDretexts and evasions which selfishness employs, to excuse itself from present duty. It says 'at another time' — 'at a more convenient season' — ' but I must wait till then.' On such a footing, Solomon virtually asks, what really good or important work could ever be accomplished at all ? " He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap." If we are never to do an act of kindness till we are per- fectly sure that it will not be abused, and that it will really and fully accomplish the purpose we intend by it, we shall never perform any such act at all. If I am never to give an alms, until I know the Avhole history, past and future, of the individual who is to receive it ; if I am never to befriend one who is in difficulty and distress, till I can be positively assured that he will prove himself worthy of it; if I am never to bestow my money on any undertaking for promoting the tem- poral or spiritual welfare of my fellowmen, till I have infallible proof that there shall be no mistake committed in the manage- ment of it, and that it shall effect all the good which its authors are looking for and aiming at, I may as well resolve at once to do nothing, in the way of spending my worldly substance, for the interests of religion or humanity at all. Men do not make such um-easonable demands — they do not ask for such impossibilities — as the condition of giving either their labour or their money in prosecuting their ordinary affairs. The husbandman does not refuse to plough and sow his fields, un- less he can be made sure, that the season is to be propitious and the harvest great. The merchant does not insist on a positive guarantee for a profitable return to his trade, before he will lay out his money in providing the materials, with which it is to be carried on. The sailor does not refuse to unmoor his ship, unless some voice from heaven will tell him that he is to meet no tem- pest, and to suffer no shipwreck, upon his voyage. No; there is no such folly committed by men in conducting the common 402 WORKS OF FAITH AND LABOURS OF LOVE. business of life. They know and acknowledge that many things must be done, the issue of which is wrapped up in darkness and uncertainty ; and they are quite contented, in prosecuting their own worldly affairs, to proceed on this footing. Why, then, should they be unwilling to follow a similar course in doing good works? Let them by all means employ their best fore- sight and caution; let them make every necessary inquiry; let them satisfy themselves that the object is good, and the means fitting, and the time suitable. This is not merely lawful — it is their duty. But, having done this, let them hesitate no longer; let them give, not grudgingly, nor of necessity, but cheerfully ; and let them leave the issue in the hands of Him whose kingdom ruleth over all. He may have designs of which we are ignorant — designs which may turn out to conflict with our plans, or which in the long run may crown them with complete and glorious success. Reminding us of this important truth, Solomon goes on to say, " Thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child : even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all." Having thus exposed the foolish or disingenuous pleas, which men are ever too ready to put forward, by way of cloaking their selfish unwillingness to meet the calls of duty, Solomon returns to the exhortation with which he began, and presses it anew, with the added force of the important ' considerations which he has meanwhile interposed. " In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand ; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good." Here he drops the bold figure of casting the seed upon the waters, because he has now in view a some- what different aspect of the duty he is dealing with, from the one pointed at in the beginning of the chapter. There it was his aim to stimulate the exercise of a free, generous, adventurous beneficence — a beneficence which, in its earnest, disinterested unselfish longing to do good, will not be always timidly or too WE MUST EEDEEM THE TENIE. 403 nicely calculating, what is to be tlie issue of the efforts, or of the gifts which the work demands. Here, while he has still that former object before him, he — or rather that blessed Spirit whose words he utters — has another, though quite a kindred purpose in hand ; which is, to urge the importance, nay, the necessity, of steadfast, unflagging perseverance in whatever work of faith or labour of love our hand findeth to do. Just because we cannot foresee the final issue of things — because the labour that seemed most hopeful may turn out in the end the most fruitless, while that which appeared the most unpromising may ultimately result in the most unexpected and complete success — therefore must we never weary in well-doing, but, in the face of whatever difficulties or discouragements may arise, must still go on, trusting in the Lord and staying our minds upon God. To Him it belongs to command success; but to us it belongs, in faith and prayer, to use the appointed means. Such, then, as regards the use to be made of worldly posses- sions, is the great lesson taught in this book by the wisdom of God. It is, for substance, the same lesson which our Lord Jesus founded on the jDarable of the unjust steward, when He said, "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteous- ness, that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations" (Luke xvi. 9). Thus honouring the Lord with our substanccj and with all the first-fruits of our increase, we shall be made instruments of blessing to others; and, at the same time, shall most surely bring down multiplied blessings upon ourselves. What we lend unto the Lord — what we give of our portion of this world's goods to promote His glory, — if it should be lost to us on earth, " we shall find after many days," laid up for us as a treasure in heaven. Let us be assured, then, that that saying of Solomon is lite- rally true, that, as regards these earthly things, there is no good in them for a man, but to rejoice and to do good in his life. And what an infinitely nobler use is this, for a man to make of his worldly means, than to grasp them with the hand of a miser, 404) WOEKS OF FAITH AND LABOURS OF LOVE. or to spend them on merely personal and selfish obj ects of his own ! To have fine houses, and gay clothing, and costly feasts ; to make these our idols, and to devote to them so large a propor- tion of our means, as to leave ourselves poor for everything else — is not this, after all, vanity of vanities — vanity of vanities ! Better far to be the poor Lazarus at the gate, with the dogs licking his sores, than to enjoy for a little season the fine linen and the sumptuous fare, and then to go away to endless and unutterable woe. Not thus, surely, should life be spent by those, w^ho profess to have been redeemed unto God, by the blood of His blessed Son. They, at least, may be expected to have some better thing to aim at, than their own selfish ease and pleasure. If they, indeed, know the grace of the Lord Jesus Ch^rist — how that though He was rich, yet for their sakes He became poor, that they through His poverty might be rich, — they will scorn so io;noble a career, as that of livinoj to the flesh and to the world. They will look, not on their own things alone, but also on the things of others — they will seek, not their own things, but the things which are Jesus Christ's. Their aim, their prayer, their continual efibrt, through grace, will be, to be like Him who pleased not himself — whose life was one great act of self-sacrifice for the good of others — whose meat and whose drink it was to do the will of His Father, and to finish His work. In the interpretation thus given of the passage before us, it has been assumed, from the language it employs, and from the general scope of the book in which it is found, that its immediate object and main design, is to show the true way to find happi- ness in worldty things. To employ them in doing good — good to the possessor of them of course included — is the true secret for extracting out of them, the utmost amount of happiness which it is in their nature to afibrd. The doctrine upon this subject which is taught here is entirely at one with that of the 112th Psalm : "A good man showeth favour and lendeth; he will guide his affairs with discretion. Surely he shall not be moved for THE LESSOX APPLIED TO HEAVENLY THINGS. 405 ever : the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance. He shall not be afraid of evil tidings : his heart is fixed trusting in the Lord. . . He hath dispersed (his boimties), he hath given to the poor : his righteousness endureth for ever : his horn shall be exalted with honour." At the same time it is impossible not to feel, in studying this passage, how applicable it is to heavenly things : and how truly and beautifully it describes the spirit, and the principles, under the influence of which God's people should be aiming, each in his own sphere and according to his own opportunities and means, to dispense the bread of life. That bread, that good seed of the kingdom, it is pre-eminently our duty to cast upon the waters — to present as occasion offers, even to those who may seem least likely to receive it. How often, in such cases, has it been found after many days ! How often have a father's counsels, and a mother's entreaties, prevailed, through grace, with a prodigal son, to turn his heart to the Lord — long, it may- be, after the lips that uttered them had been closed in death ! How often has the martyr's testimony for the truth, though stifled for the time in a dungeon, or silenced upon a scaffold, come back in after years like a voice from heaven — come back to arouse a whole people from the sleep of religious indifference, and to perpetuate among them, for long generations, abhorrence of the oppression under which he suffered, and devotedness to the cause for which he died. The bread-corn of the precious seed of the "Word, which such witnesses cast upon the waters, was not thro^vn away. The floods of iniquity, to whose dark and swelling bosom it was committed, may, for a season, have pre- vailed. But the incorruptible seed, like the ark of Noah, survived the angry deluge ; and when the waters were assuaged, it found a more genial soil, where it brought forth fruit unto God. Have you received this inestimable treasure — this true riches? See that ye dispense it. Freely ye have received ; freely give. Remember the saying of Solomon — " If the clouds be full of 406 WORKS OF FAITH AND LABOURS OF LOVE. rain tliey empty themselves upon the earth." This best of all blessings was not meant for yourselves alone. Are you parents that have it 1 — bestow it upon your children. Are you mas- ters ? — bestow it on the members of your household. Are you friends'? — bestow it upon your companions. Be not dis- couraged by the apparent unlikelihood of its being well received. Cast it upon the waters. It will not be lost. If they i eject it, they will sustain a loss: but you will not fail of a gain. It will be recorded in those books of remembrance which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall open in the great day: and it will be acknowledged in that sentence, the most blessed and glorious that can be heard by human ears — " Well done, good and faith- ful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." And be not weary in this noblest form of well-doing. The time is short. The night cometh when no man can work. The axe shall soon be laid to the root of the tree, and " in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be." Let this thought stir up all who have any work to do, or any word to speak for God, to do it now. To-day alone is ours — to-morrow it may be too late. Above all, let this thought stir up those who have still to seek Christ for themselves — who have never yet, in right earnest, come to Him who is the true bread that giveth life to the world. O sinner — O poor perishing prodigal — there is enough and to spare of this living bread in thy Father's house j and why shouldst thou perish with hunger 1 Let thy prayer be — " Lord evermore give me of this bread." Offer that prayer now, and thy soul shall live for ever ! THE LIGHT IS SWEET. 407 CHAPTER XVIII. AN EXHOETATION TO CULTIVATE EAKLY PIETY. " Tnily the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun : but if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the days of dark- ness ; for they shall be many. AU that cometh is vanity. " Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of tliine lieart, and in the sight of thine eyes : but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. Therefore remove soiTow from thy heart, and put away evil fi-om thy flesh : for childhood and youth are vanity. " Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the yeai-s di-aw nigli, when thou slialt say, I have no pleasure in them ; while the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor tlie clouils return after the rain : in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the gi-inders cease, because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened; and the doora shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grintUng is low; and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird; and all tlie daughtei-s of musick shall be brought low : also when they shaU be afraid of that which is high, and tiears shall be in the way, and the almond-tree shaU flom-ish, and the grasshopper shaU be a burden, and desire shall fail ; becaiise man goeth to his long home, and the moiu-uers go about the streets : or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern : then shall the dust return to the earth as it was ; and the spirit shaU return unto God who gave it. "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; aU is vanity."— Eccles. xi. 7-10; xii. 1-8. THOUGH commentators have much differed on the point, there does seem to be no reasonable ground for doubting that a new passage or paragraph opens with these words — " Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun." The preceding verses we found to contain an earnest exhortation, to make a prompt, generous, faithful, and diligent use of the means and opportunities of doing good, in this present world, which God may have given us. In those verses it was obviously Solomon's aim to stir men up to work while it is day ; to redeem the time ; to live under tlie powers of the 408 EARLY PIETY. world to come ; to look, not every man on his own things merely, but every man also on the things of others ; to consider none of the things that we have as our own, but, as being stew- ards of God's bounty, to lay all out for His glory. By cultivating this unselfish, loving, and liberal spirit — by following this course of active usefulness — by thus living, in a word, under a constant sense of our personal responsibility to Him to whom we owe life, and breath, and all things — we shall make the most that can be made of worldly things— shall extract all the happiness out of them, which they are capable of communicating — and shall, at the same time, be in the best case both for meeting whatever may be awaiting us in the vicissitudes of this life, and for giving in our account in that great and notable day, that is to try every man's work of what sort it is. Such is the counsel of that heavenly wisdom which Solomon had been inspired to teach. But Solomon well knew there were many, to whom the dic- tates of that divine wisdom were altogether distasteful. He knew there were multitudes, who had no relish for a life of self-denial — who were bent on their own present indulgence — on their own ease and pleasure — on having their own way. Speaking now, therefore, to such men, he would have them to look before them, and to consider the consequences of such a career. He quite understood their state of mind. He could enter without any difficulty into their view of things. The days of his own folly, when he too had sought his happiness in the possessions and pleasures of this present world, enabled him perfectly to realize the feelings and expectations by which they were animated. They must not mistake him, therefore, as if he were some gloomy ascetic, who never had any acquaintance or sympathy, with what they found to be so enticing and delight- ful. His tastes had once been identical with theirs. The days had been, when the things of sense and time exercised as powerful an influence over him, as they now did over them. A life of mere earthly enjoyment was a life, whose fascinations had long held him bound, as with the spell of an enchantment. youth's day dreams. 409 Accordiugly, when he turns round to men of this class and character, and addresses them in these words of the 7th verse — "Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun" — it is as if he said — I know your thoughts upon this subject; and I do not in the very least dispute the fact, that there is something intensely gratifying to human nature, in those outward and material things on which your hearts are set. In the season of early youth especially, when all is fresh and new, there is a zest in these worldly pleasures of a most attrac- tive kind. Mere existence is a happiness. Everything looks bright and joyous. In the light-hearted buoyancy and gaiety of such a state of feeling, life seems as if it were destined to be a scene of perpetual sunshine. Ah! yes. I know it, says Solomon. I understand it all.. It is like the glorious dawn of a long summer's day. There is not a cloud upon the sky, and the earth beneath it, is all strewed with flowers. Be it so ; but bear in mind that that long day will come to an end at last — that that bright sun will go. down — that the shadows of night will at length fall over this fair scene — and that all will be deep, unbroken darkness. Solomon does not, by any means, intend to admit that the worldly man's glowing anticipations, about this present life, are to be actually realized. That sun of worldly prosperity and enjoy- ment, whose light is now so sweet, so pleasant to the eyes to behold, may go down at noon. Thick clouds of sorrow, storms and tempests of sore calamity, may ere long arise to blacken the heavens and blot out the sun ; and that future that now seems so brilliant may be speedily overcast with the gloomiest shade. But even if it were to be otherwise — " if a man" — such a man as thou — a man who art looking to this world, as thy portion and thy home, and who hast no aim and no hope beyond it — " if such a man live many years, and rejoice in them all ; yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many." In a word, Solomon concedes, for the moment, all that the worldly man can either ask, or expect, as to his earthly career. He grants to him the very utmost that he can venture to afiirm, or 26 410 EARLY PIETY. to anticipate, as to the enjoyment to be derived from a life of pleasure and self-indulgence. Not that lie agrees with him on that subject; but he will not raise a dispute on points to which the worldly man, in his present mood of mind, is not in the least likely to do justice. Solomon can afford to let those points alone ; and he contents himself with another, and far greater, question that remains behind. Let the worldly man make o± this world what he pleases, what is he to make of the next world? Threescore years and ten, or at the most, fourscore years, will suffice to bring him to the boundaries of time. How is it to fare with him in that never-ending eternity, into which he is then to pass? What though all should have gone merrily on till that eventful hour, if beyond it there be nothing in store, but the blackness of darkness for ever! This is the momentous consideration, on which Solomon would fix his thoughts. Sit down, he virtually says to the worldly man, and count the cost of the choice you are making. Are you pre- pared, he asks him, to gain the world at the expense of losing your immortal soul? Is not this a worse folly than that of Esau, who sold his birthright for a mess of pottage? Are you contented thus to sow to the flesh, at the expense of reaping corruption? — to sow the wind, at the expense of reaping the whirlwind? Solomon will make no concessions here. He has left the worldly man to assume what he pleases, about the life that now is; but he will not suffer him to make any such loose or false assumptions, about the life to come. On this subject he is plain and peremptory. He tells him, broadly and unhesitat- ingly, that such a life as the worldly man is leading — a life spent without God — can be followed by nothing but " days of dark- ness" — days that "shall be many" — days the number of which no arithmetic can sum up — days countless and ceaseless — days of everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power. Surely it is literally true, of a life that leads inevitably to such endless and unutterable woe, to say — " All that cometh [of such a life] is vanity ! " Solomon's appeal. 411 To deepen the impression which this mode of dealing with tlie subject is fitted to make, he summons up before him the sort of man he has had in view. He calls him into his presence as a rejjresentative of the class — a class in all ages deplorably nume- rous — against whom his argument is pointed. And just in order that there may be no room, and no ground, left for taking exception to his argument, — as if it did not do fall justice to the case he is handliug, — he is at pains to single out such a repre- sentative, of those who are setting their aifections on the things that are beneath, as they themselves must admit to be the most favourable, for their side of the question, that could have been chosen. In order to expose the vanity of a life devoted to this w^orld, he does not select some wasted and worn-out debauchee who has become sated and sickened, and perhaps even soured, with the world. No. He takes a young man — one just enter- ing into life, and full of all the ardour and enthusiasm which usually belong to the youthful mind. In the joyousness of his sanguine spirit such a young man will not believe, that worldly things are so incapable of conferring happiness, as heavenly wisdom represents them to be. As yet, at least, he finds it to be quite otherwise. They afford him intense enjoyment. His heart bounds within him, at the very prospect of drinking again of their intoxicating pleasures. He longs to be in the midst of them; and in the song and the dance, the mirth and revelry, the wit and wine of the gay society in which he delights to mingle, to laugh away the cares, and fears, and solemn thoughts which such counsellors as Solomon Avould call up before him, by rea- soning of righteousness, and temperance, and judgment to come. No, replies the self-willed, whole-hearted, worldly-minded, plea- sure-loving youth — I am no believer in that dismal doctrine of yours, "that all is vanity." I find the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life very agreeable. The tree, against whose fruit you so earnestly warn me, is good for food and pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise. I like it, and am resolved to eat of it. Is it so ! answers 412 EARLY PIETY. Solomon. Yery well; take your own way. " Rejoice, young man in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes ; but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." This pointed address, to the youthful lover of this world, makes it plain that, from the 7th verse onwards to the end of the chapter, Solomon is dealing with those who will not listen to the views, which the immediately preceding context contains. He had laid before them, in that context, a "more excellent way" of spending their time and their wordly means, than that o± usin GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. 1'.. . . i- K f.., '•■ '■■!', i,, a^ '•■. > ill < ^ I i