Chapter One

THESE are no common words. They are weighty in substance, golden in value. But their highest stamp is, that they are, as with the olden prophets, words from the mouth of God. Let us take them, not only as the words of Solomon, the wisest of men, but as the words of “the only wise God. Let them come to us in the full conviction of their Divine original.

Folly and weakness is our name; but, oh, let us be as a little child before every word of the testimony, with a supreme desire to know the mind of God, not disputing; “not leaning to our own understanding” (Prov. 3:5); but patient, humble learners before our heavenly Teacher. Thus must we “humble ourselves” (Matt. 18:3, 4), if we would profit by the precious instruction.

‘When a man’ (such was the dying witness of an intellectual Christian) ‘comes to that book as a child, he will find wonders in it to make him marvel. Observe Solomon in his new name and character, given to him only in this book—the Preacher. This sacred office he places in the foreground. For was it not more honourable to be the instructor of his people than to be King in Jerusalem? If this was a just estimate in Solomon’s time, much more is it in our own.

The ordinance of preaching is now more fully consecrated, as the grand instrument of Divine grace. (1 Cor. 1:21.) It tunes the heavenly song of “joy over the repenting sinner.” (Luke 15:10.) It brings out the purchased jewels to be eternally fixed in the mediatorial crown.

It anticipates the work of angels in “gathering together the elect of God.” (Matt. 24:31.) Surely then this office may be recognized as a far higher glory than to have discovered a planet, or to have founded a dynasty. But let us see the Royal PREACHER in office, ‘garnished by God with great and glorious gifts. Behold him consecrating that temple, on which he had centred his whole heart, and his untold treasures.

With him is the “assembly of the elders of Israel, and all the Heads of the tribes of Israel. No priest or Levite performs the service. “Kneeling down upon his brazen scaffolding,” “the king turned his face about, and blessed all the congregation of Israel.

And when with pleading confidence he had led the solemnities of the national worship, he dismisses the assembly with a valuable word of practical exhortation.—“Let your heart be perfect with the Lord our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments as at this day. The Preacher’s ordinary course combined oral and written instruction.

“He taught the people knowledge; and that which was written was upright, even words of truth,” (Ecclesiastes 12:9, 10.) His oral teaching was wondrously diversified in every track of science. ‘He was the encyclopædia of that early age.’ (1 Kings 4:30–33.) From all nations around, and from all ranks, they flocked to hear his wisdom. (1 Ki 4:34.) Our Lord reads us a lesson of conviction from one of these illustrious strangers: “The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.” (Matt. 12:42.) At his last period of life the Preacher laboured with unwearied devotedness, to repair the dishonour to God from his evil example.

“He still taught the people knowledge, and sought to find out acceptable words.” (Ecclesiastes 12:9, 10.) Perhaps this office, as with restored Peter in after days, was the seal of his restoration. “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. Feed my sheep.” (Luke 22:32; John, 12:15–17.) But however his vast stores of wisdom may have fitted him for his work, the school of experience furnished a far higher qualification.

His main subject is the utter vanity of earthly show, and the substantial happiness of the enjoyment and service of God; and who could touch these points with such sensibility and demonstration, as he, who had so grossly “committed the two evils—having forsaken the fountain of living waters, and hewn out to himself cisterns, broken cisterns, that could hold no water?” (Jer. 2:13.) Most poignantly would he witness to the “evil and bitterness” (Jer 2:19,) of this way of folly. (Jer. 2:13, 19.) The Preacher’s parentage also added weight to his instructions—The Son of David!

How much did he owe to his godly and affectionate counsel! Indeed he stands out as a bright illustration of his own confidence, that the “trained child,” though for a while—perhaps a long while—he may be a wanderer from the path, yet, when he is old—in his last days—he shall not depart from it.” (Prov. 22:6.) Let God be honoured in the practical exercise of faith, and his promise will be made good in his own most fitting time—“I will be a God to thee, and to thy seed after thee.

We have also before us the Preacher’s dignity—King in Jerusalem. His royal influence must indeed have been shaken by the gross display of idolatrous lust. On the other hand, the special credentials of his birth (2 Sam. 7:12–14), the seal of Divine love upon him (2 Sa 12:24, 25; Neh. 13:26), and his rich endowments (1 Kings 3:5–12) could not be forgotten.

In looking backward we find, that the sacred office has been filled from all ranks of life, from the King in Jerusalem to the herdman of Tekoa (Amos, 1:1), and the fishermen of Galilee. (Matt. 4:18–22.) But in all this diversity of ministration, “the treasure has been in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God.” (2 Cor. 4:7.)

This verse appears to have been intended to be the compendium of the whole treatise. The subject opens upon us abruptly; and no wonder; The Preacher’s heart is so filled with it. He longs to make a forcible impression. His text is ‘the whole world, with all the pleasures, and profits, and honours, and endeavours, and business, and events that are under the sun.

He brings out his subject with a vast variety of illustration, and then closes with emphatically repeating his judgment. He seems as if he could not give full expression to his convictions. It is not only vain, but vanity itself. He redoubles his asseveration to show the certainty of it, and that all is unmixed vanity in its highest degree—vanity of vanities. Nor does this belong only to a part.

Everything severally, all things collectively—all is one expanse—one vast heap of numberless perishing vanities. ‘I affirm again and again, that there is nothing in this world, but what is the vainest vanity. All is therefore utterly inefficient for the great end of man’s true happiness. It only enlarges his desires in the endeavour to gratify them. But it leaves ‘behind an aching void,’ a blank, that it cannot fill up.

So saith the Preacher—repeating his office, to give weight to his decision. Nor is it the judgment of a soured mind—of one, who was leaving the world, only because the world was leaving him. The book bears evidence, that his mind was in full and clear vigour. He had lived the life all over.

He loathed himself for his dear-bought experience of it, and was now “come to himself,” and seeking a better portion in his Father’s house. (Luke 15:13–20.) Yet the Preacher’s verdict casts no reflection on the works of God, which at their original formation their Maker had pronounced to be “very good. He speaks of them here—not as God made, but as sin has marred them. Things instrinsically excellent are perverted by their abuse.

“The creature is” now “made subject to vanity.” (Rom. 8:20.) Repeatedly does Solomon remind us that the blessings of the creature, when used for the glory of God, are lawful in themselves, and become the source of rich and legitimate enjoyment. But here lies the evil. Man buries his heart in their vanity. He makes them his chief good—his happiness and rest. But “vanity” is the stamp on “man” even “in his best estate. It pervades—as we have said—every class.

The rich, the learned, the ambitious, build their Babels upon the cheat of the great deceiver.—Nay—the poor have ‘their little Babylon of straw. Everywhere it is one picture. To give a deeper impression of it, the wise man puts it forth in a vehement exclamation, as if overwhelmed with his own perception of it, and wondering at the delusion of seeking happiness from a mere vapour.

So deeply has the love of vanity struck its roots into the heart, that the delusion cannot be too strongly exposed. But have we no balancing reality? Are we to fret under the desponding inquiry—“Who will show us any good?” (Ps. 4:6.) ‘May I have Christ with me in the world’—prayed the heavenly Martyn—‘not substituting imagination in the place of faith, but seeing outward things as they really are, and thus obtaining a radical conviction of their vanity.

Here we mark the hero of faith, his “victory overcoming the world.” (1 John 5:4.) Here is the grand thing—that which alone is important. Earthly things look grand, till the trial has proved their vanity; heavenly things look mean, till the trial has developed their glory. Calculate both worlds—each in its relative value. ‘In “looking at the things that are not seen and eternal,” how is the brightness of “the things that are seen and temporal” eclipsed!

And yet never can we look off from this “seen and temporal” sphere, till we look beyond it. Then truly the sight of the brighter world will make this world a wilderness!

‘O world! thou art too small; We seek another higher, Whither Christ guides us ever nigher, Where God is all in all.’

The mass of mankind revolt from the Preacher’s judgment. He therefore throws down the challenge. What profit? General propositions must often admit of limitations. Labour, physical and moral, brings its own harvest. (Prov. 14:23.) Nay, there is a dignity in manual labour. Hath not the example of the Son of God blotted out all the stain of meanness, and made it a work worthy of the greatest of men? But as regards the chief good, what can all our resources effect?

Apart from God, the world is poor indeed. Disappointment brings weariness. Success gives no permanent satisfaction.

‘The world’s all title-page, without contents.’

Cast up its account. Nothing but cyphers remains. The theory is falsified by experience. Its comforts are withering. They stop on this side the grave. All is dark beyond. As one said, who had built for himself a splendid elysium, ‘I have no comfort in all this, because I meet death in every walk.

To expect, therefore, from the world that which is not in it, is surely to “spend labour for that which satisfieth not.” (Isa. 55:2.) Yea, as a punishment for this perversity—“Behold, is it not of the Lord of Hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?” (Hab. 2:13.) In fact, men are so willing to be deceived, that they take up with the very shadow of profit.

For what appears to be substance is more accurately described as an unreal thing, having no being at all. The appetite indeed for wisdom, riches, honour, and sensual indulgence, may be indefinitely enlarged. But supposing the possession of this world’s all—“What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Matt. 16:26.) The man of the world may be orthodox in his creed and moral in his practice. But he has stumbled at the very threshold.

He has placed the world before God—the body before the soul—time before eternity. What, then, will it be at the last, when the account of all our labour must be rendered up? when the man of pleasure and the servant of sin shall stand before God? Will not the question then flash upon the conscience—“What fruit had ye then in those things, whereof ye are now ashamed?

‘There is none of you’—saith Bp. Taylor—‘that ever entered this house of pleasure but he left the skirts of his garment in the hands of shame, and had his name rolled in the chambers of death. What fruit had ye then? This is the question. And where will the answer be given, but in darkness and despair? “The end of those things is death.” (Rom. 6:21.) Such is the fruitless labour under the sun.

Let man spend his pains on a world (as Henry somewhat quaintly contrasts) ‘above the sun, that needs not the sun, for the glory of God is its light, where there is work without labour, and with great profit. “They are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple. The pleasures of this service never wear out.

The changeableness of man, as contrasted with the permanency of his abode, furnishes another proof of utter vanity. Man and his labour are swept away, as if they had never been. ‘The earth is a stage—persons passing and vanishing before our eyes. It is continually shifting its inhabitants. One generation passeth away to make room for another. Fathers are going; children are coming after. None stayeth. The house abideth, but the tenants are continually changing.

Could they remain to enjoy it, there might be some solid, because some permanent, profit. But eternity and unchangeableness are the necessary grounds of happiness. The ultimate destiny of the earth is, that it, “and the works that are therein, shall be burned up.” (2 Pet. 3:10, 11.) Yet a substratum for the “new earth,” which “we, according to his promise, look for,” (2 Pe 3:13,) may be reserved.

At all events, as compared with man’s passing away, it abideth ever, till its end in connection with the purpose of God be eternally accomplished. So long as there shall remain “a seed to serve him,” and “one generation to praise his works to another,” (Ps. 22:30; 45:4,) so long it abideth. See how everything presents the same picture. The sun, after so many thousand courses, ariseth and goeth down … hasting to his place (Ps. 19:4–6; 104:19–22).

The wind is always shifting, returning again according to his circuits. (Ps. 135:7; Jer. 10:13.) The currents of the rivers run into the sea, which yet is not full, but returns them in clouds and vapours to water the earth. (Ps. 104:8, 9.) All this seems a weary go-round—constant movement combined with constant sameness. So many emblems of man’s restless state!

Should they not rouse us to “work while it is day” (John 9:4)—filling up our own little sphere “of service according to the will of God in our generation” (Acts, 13:36)—looking to “fall asleep in Jesus, resting from our labours, and our works following us?” (Rev. 14:13.)

Every step of advance shows more clearly the “weary land. Labour, not rest, is our portion. (Ecclesiastes 2:11, 22.) “Man riseth up early, and late taketh rest, and eateth the bread of carefulness. All things, even the most cheerful exercises, are full of labour. What therefore brings toil, brings only additional proof that all is vanity. Indeed, in so many ways is this weariness felt, that man cannot utter it.

In all the inconceivable variety, we are as far from rest, as the sun, the wind, the rivers, in their respective spheres. As the Christian philosopher profoundly remarks—‘Our own will, although it should obtain its largest wish, would always keep us in uneasiness. Men seek, and they find; and yet they toil again, no nearer the prize than at the beginning. Nay, even the delights enjoyed through the medium of the senses cloy.

Seeing and hearing bring no permanent satisfaction. (Ecclesiastes 4:8; 5:10, 11. Comp. Prov. 27:20; 30:15, 16.) They would fain describe, if they could, the bitterness and extent of their disappointment. Men cry for more and more of the world. But when it comes, it does not satisfy. Do they ever dream of rest?

‘Whence arise distractions of heart, thoughts for to-morrow, rovings and inquisitions of the soul after infinite varieties of earthly things, swarms of lusts, sparkles of endless thoughts, those secret flowings, and ebbs, and tempests, and estuations of that sea of corruption in the heart of man—but because it can never find anything on which to rest, or that hath room enough to entertain so ample and so endless a guest?

Never, surely, can there be satisfaction to the eye, till it be singly fixed upon the one object—to the ear, till it listen to those breathings of love, which welcome the “heavy-laden labourer” to the only true rest. (Matt. 11:28.) Is it not the real apprehension of the Saviour, that gives life, energy, and joy to our religion? The object is full of fresh and sweet variety. To “the new creature” it is a new existence; “all things become new.

The appetite is fully satisfied even with present gratification. “He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35. Comp. 4:13, 14.) Eternity opens with the bright anticipation of perfect enjoyment. The heavenly Shepherd shall be our Feeder. The living fountain of waters shall be an eternally satisfying delight. (Rev. 7:16, 17.)

The Preacher extends his view on all sides. He includes all ages to the very end of time. The thing that hath been and hath been done, he assures us, is that which shall be.—Nothing new. This, indeed, must be a qualified statement. Amid endlessly diversified changes and modifications some things, doubtless, there are, which have not been already of old time. But the main features of the universe are the same.

Things animate and inanimate remain as they were from the beginning. (2 Pet. 3:4.) “The works were finished from the foundation of the world.” (Heb. 4:3.) The same causes produce the same effects. The laws of the heavenly bodies, the courses of the seasons (Gen. 8:22; Ps. 74:16, 17; Jer. 5:24), the arrangements relative to the animal world, ‘the chemistry of the creation,’ the chemical properties of natural bodies and objects—have never changed.

There is no new thing under the sun. Nay, indeed, we may throw out the challenge—Is there anything of which it may be said, See, it is new? Man’s active intellect, assisted by the experience of former ages, is indeed always at work. But the most that he can boast of is little more than an enlarged discovery of the properties of matter, and a more accurate application of what has been from the beginning.

And may we not class the vast discoveries, mechanical and scientific—the power of steam and electricity—as developments of natural principles—therefore nothing new? ‘For novelty,’ said the great Bacon, ‘no man that wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly, but will find that printed on his heart—nothing new upon the earth.

Solomon had just before beautifully described the process of evaporation—the waters of the sea forming clouds, which empty themselves upon the earth, and fill the rivers, which again carry them into the sea (vv. 6, 7). But here is no new creation of waters; only the successive reproduction of the clouds, vapours, and rivers. In the wondrous economy of nature there is, therefore, no new thing under the sun.

Nay, even many discoveries, that appear to be new, have been shown to be the unknown work of bygone ages. The art of printing was known in China some centuries before it was proclaimed in Europe as a new invention. The history of the Church furnishes abundant evidence of our point. All ecclesiastial revolutions, and the ever-varying phases of doctrine, are only ‘the same scene over and over again. We sound the warning.

Beware of being dazzled by the glare of new things—new philosophy—a new show of truth. Faithful men value the old truths, ask for the good old way, “the footsteps of the flock. “The present truth,” the truth then taught, was the truth in which the Apostle exhorted his people to “be established.” (2 Pet. 1:12–15.) ‘A new truth—in the sense of something neither expressed nor virtually asserted before—not implied (involved) in anything already known—cannot properly be looked for in religion.

A full and final revelation having been made, no discovery, properly so called, of any high importance is to be expected. Look again at man in all his pleasures, pursuits, and changes of life. His intellect may be gratified, and his appetite for novelty supplied, in the multiplied new openings of science. But no new springs of vital happiness are opened to him. He is as far as ever from true rest. Our disappointed forefathers in bygone days never found it.

We shall find the world as they did. And so we shall leave it to our children—a world of vexation, a shadow, and a bubble. But what is the end of all this restlessness? Is it not (as Augustine finely describes it) our gracious Father ‘pressing upon the backs of his fugitive children,’ to bring them home to himself? Thus does he make them feel the love and wisdom of his own will, that they should enter into no rest but his?

This, like the last, is a general, rather than an universal, truth. But the fact that “there is more oblivion than remembrance, shows another feature of this world’s vanity. Not only the things themselves, but the remembrance of the former things passeth away. Time blots out a multitude of events, as if they had never been.

Men, as well as events, have passed away, so that the remark forces itself upon us, ‘How few—how easily to be counted up—are the cardinal names in the history of the human mind! How little is the remembrance of the great empire of Nimrod, of the early beginnings of Rome, or the first dynasty of France! The traditionary records are most imperfect, only (as an old expositor stamps them) ‘rugged and rusty guesses at these matters.

Much that used to form a part of ancient history is now cast out of remembrance. ‘The river Lethe runneth as well above ground as below. Thus the idols and heroes of the world—the mighty and illustrious—with all their titles and grandeur—like a pageant of the world—pass by, and are forgotten. A miserable fool, indeed, is he, who has no better stay and portion than this shadowy remembrance. Those that shall come after will be covered with the same veil of death and oblivion.

The objects now so vividly before us, and engrossing our highest interest—to the next generation will gradually pass away in the haze of distance. Nor need this be sadness to us. For, save where God has been the supreme object, the retrospect is a blank—yea—a blot in our existence. And as to our happiness—none of this life’s changes have altered the character of this world to us. Is it not still—Christian—a world of “vanity and vexation of spirit?

Now contrast with this oblivion of former things the great miracle of Providence—the preservation of the Bible—God’s own Book—and therefore under his special cover. Here is indeed the remembrance of former things—free from the injury of time—free from the mists of uncertainty—still full and clear, as from the beginning. What do we owe to the Divine Keeper for this precious transcript of himself—his will—his love!

Contrast, again, this want of remembrance with the recollection, that with God nothing is blotted out—nothing forgotten. All the history of every child of man, from the beginning to the end of the world—all that he has done, said, thought, and felt—every moment—all is ever-present to his eye in perfect order and accuracy—not one atom missing from the whole—not one particle of confusion—the end seen from the beginning without a cloud.

“Such knowledge”—the Psalmist reverently acknowledges—“is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain unto it.” (Ps. 139:1–6.)

The Preacher hitherto had only given a general view of this world’s vanity. He now confirms it from his own history. His royal dignity gave him every advantage of observation. He was King also—not of a barbarous and ignorant people—but of Israel—the only people on the face of the earth, who professed the true knowledge of God, and the right standard of principle. (Deut. 4:7, 8.) He was in Jerusalem—the Mother Church in Israel—‘the city which God had fixed as the habitation of his glory.

Who does not know his sadly instructive history? His day opened “as a morning without clouds. His meridian was brightness “above his fellows. But the shadows of evening how dark! Instead of the fruitfulness of a long course of devotedness, all was sorrow and shame, with only a few last rays of the setting sun to brighten the thick cloud. But how could Solomon thus fall? Could he, who so highly exalted wisdom, degrade himself into the lowest folly?

Could he, who was so conscious of the snares of sin, and warned so wisely—so earnestly—could he fall, so as to become a proverb of Apostacy? He who had tasted such gracious manifestations of the Saviour’s love, leave the Beloved of his soul for abominable idols? Only those who have been taught by experience, no less than by Scripture, the total corruption of the heart, can solve the mystery. But to such the lesson is most valuable.

The moment that utter weakness loses its hold, and forgets the need of habitual dependence—this is the moment of a certain fall. The most exalted Christian attainments—the longest standing in the Church—the most extensive usefulness in the world—the richest store of spiritual gifts—all furnish no security against the crisis. The most experienced is exposed, no less than the weakest babe in the family.

Oh! what need is there to “watch unto prayer” (1 Pet. 4:7), and to walk closely with God!

The wise man throws himself with intense energy into his hazardous inquiry! He gave his heart to seek and search out. All his extraordinary treasures of wisdom were employed to know—Why is man—the noblest of God’s creatures—placed in the world to be exercised with sore travail, during his short continuance?

Why his unsatisfied desires—his weariness of life—his strivings and toilings—his unsuccessful search after happiness, even while all the sources of earthly gratification are spread at his feet? The Preacher himself subsequently explained the problem—“God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions.” (Ecclesiastes 7:29.) Man by his fall alienated himself from the only source of life and rest.

Fallen man of himself cannot recover one atom of his former perfection. God hath given him this travail as the chastening for his apostacy. All is dark with him, till he shall see that all is vanity, and himself the chiefest of all vanities. This is the Lord’s training—the discipline of his school—the ordinary method of his Sovereign grace. Oh! sinner—thou must know the depth of thy ruin—the bankruptcy of thy nature.

Thou must learn to trample upon the petty objects of the world—to set in full view its meanness—its vanity—its nothingness. Thus the Lord will bring thee to thy home, wearied with the unsuccessful efforts to seek in thyself or in the world what is only to be found in him. But once brought home—oh! the contrast of present repose with the sore travail—what Lord Bacon beautifully calls ‘sacred and inspired Divinity—the Sabbath and port of all men’s labours and peregrinations.

All the creatures can never be to me in his stead. I have found in him a portion—soul-satisfying and eternal. (Ps. 73:25, 26.) Trials follow me—sometimes enough to stagger the strongest faith. But “I know whom I have believed.” (2 Tim. 1:12.) I know him to be an unfailing confidence for time and for eternity. He has engaged to take charge of all, and I bid my soul “return unto her rest” (Ps. 116:7), upon the engagements of an unchangable, covenant-keeping God.

Solomon’s research extended to all the works done under the sun. All this he had seen with his mind’s eye. He had earnestly heeded, and clearly understood it. He had before given his judgment in part—all is vanity. A more full investigation brings in a more complete verdict—all is vexation of spirit. Disappointment possesses us in trifles, as well as in matters of moment.

The intensity of interest in the pursuit of a shadow—the precious time wasted never to be recalled—frets the spirit. The golden opportunity of feeding our faith upon the promises of God, and of nourishing our graces in the pastures of the Good Shepherd—all is stolen from us by the over-eager pursuit of comparatively unworthy objects. Behold! is not this vexation of spirit? He would have us not pass by heedlessly.

Whence, but in one quarter, can we extract the balm for the vexed spirit? ‘Labour ever’—writes good Bishop Reynolds—‘to get Christ into thy ship. He will check every tempest, and calm every vexation that grows upon thee. It I have Christ with me, there can no estate come, which can be cumbersome unto me. Have I a load of misery and infirmity, inward, outward, in mind, body, name, or estate?

This takes away the vexation of all, when I consider it all comes from Christ, and it all runs into Christ. It all comes from Him, who is the distributer of his Father’s gifts, and it all runs into Him, who is the partaker of his members’ sorrows.’

The wise man directs our attention to two points—the things that are, and the countless multitude of things that are wanting. The world in its present constitution from the fall—is full of crookedness and defect. Yet a reverential inquiry will shew many apparent irregularities to be component parts of a system, which “God hath made beautiful in his time.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11.) But let us look at this aphorism more minutely. Physically, it lies upon the surface.

We have no power to alter our stature, or to change one hair of our heads. (Matt. 5:36; 6:27.) Intellectually, man’s wisdom can never discover—much less remove—the causes of his restless misery. Spiritually, every faculty of man is under the perversity of the fall, and we have no more power to make straight its crookedness, than to restore the whole work of God to its original “uprightness. Providentially, how often do the Divine appointments appear crooked to man’s eyes!

Nay, there is ‘a crook in his lot’ which he cannot alter or amend—something opposed to his own will, which he labours in vain to make straight to his own wishes. With all our struggling, crosses will be crosses still. (Ecclesiastes 7:13.) We must leave them, where God has placed them. And if we gather wisdom from their discipline, they will ultimately become the springs of our happiness, and the crown of our glory.

But man “in the fulness of his sufficiency is in straits.” (Job 20:22.) He is a creature of so many wants. That which is wanting cannot be numbered. One little crookedness is enough to wither his largest sources of satisfaction.

Ahab, with all the wealth of his kingdom, for want of a little plot of ground, lays himself down on his bed in vexation. (1 Kings 21:4.) Haman, with the monarch’s favour—the adoration of the people—immense riches and honours, had a crook, that could not be made straight. “All this availed nothing,” so long as the bended knee of one poor Jew was wanting. (Esth. 5:11–13.) ‘Nothing but the cross of Christ’—observes a spiritual writer—‘makes other crosses straight.

But where man’s own will is his law, “woe unto him that striveth with his Maker.” (Isa. 45:9.) That will, which is thus “enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7), must be the enemy to our own happiness. Never can we be happy, till we be “clay in the hands of the potter” (Jer. 18:6); till there be no resisting material throughout the whole conscious range of our spiritual perceptions. “Should it be according to thy mind?” (Job 34:33)—was once asked. Might not this be to thy ruin?

From the many wills spring all the miseries of earth. The one will forms the happiness of heaven. Let thy God, then, mould thy will, and he will frame thy happiness. Be thankful that it should be thwarted, even when it pleads most vehemently for indulgence. And shrink not from that process—painful though it be—that moulds it into conformity with the will of Omnipotent love.

Wisdom was Solomon’s first experiment in the pursuit of rest.—The object seemed to promise good result. He communed with his heart; and brought to the investigation all the advantage of great estate, large wisdom and experience. But here he lost his path. He sought to know wisdom as the rest of man—thus putting the gift in the place of the Giver.

His range of inquiry reached to the opposite quarter—to know madness and folly, as if the knowledge of contraries would clear his mind. But truly the cost of this knowledge was frightful. It was—as with our first parents—the speculative knowledge of good, and the experimental knowledge of evil—‘the pride and wantonness of knowledge, because it looketh after high things, that are above us, and after hidden things, that are denied us.

So far from increasing his happiness, it only added a deeper stamp to his decision.—This also is vanity and vexation of spirit. This path of wandering could only issue in the sober certainty of grief and sorrow, increasing at every step. The true rest of man could never be found there. The soul that has wandered from God will search heaven and earth in vain for rest. Yet we are no patrons of ignorance.

Far be it from us to deny the highly valuable pleasures of wisdom and knowledge. But if we attempt their pursuit, as Solomon seems to have done, by making an idol of our gifts—putting God out of his Supremacy—we can only expect to add our testimony to their disappointment. The more we know, the more we shall be discomposed by the consciousness of ignorance.

‘The covetousness of the understanding’—the disappointing results of favourite theories—the cloud that hangs over the brightest path of inquiry—all this places us further from happiness than the fool. Admitting, therefore, the high value of mere intellectual pleasures, their unsatisfying results are grief and sorrow. What a contrast is the substance and reality of the Gospel!

“The way of life is above to the wise” (Prov. 15:24)—higher than the highest pinnacle of this world’s glory. On the other hand, who can read the gloomy pathway into eternity of one of the most amiable of philosophers without sorrowful conviction? We might point to Sir Humphry Davy as one of the most accomplished men of his day. His science was the medium of the most important usefulness. He had his full cup of worldly honour and respect.

And yet one of the later entries in his journal tells us—‘Very miserable. The remedy for his misery he did not seek from some new and untried path of science. ‘I envy’—said he—‘no quality of mind or intellect in others—not genius, power, wit, or fancy.

But if I could choose that which would be most delightful, and I believe, most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing; for it makes life a discipline of goodness, creates new hopes, when all earthly hopes vanish, and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights; calling up the most delightful visions, where the sensual and the sceptic view only gloom, decay, and annihilation.

Hard indeed is it for the philosopher to “receive the kingdom of God”—in the only way in which it can be received—“as a little child.” (Mark 10:15.) Here will he find the only remedy for his grief and sorrow. Intelligence in all the branches of natural science gives no help to a right understanding of the Gospel. It is a science of itself—peculiar to itself, and therefore only to be rightly understood through its own organ—Divine Teaching.

Barren indeed is mere theoretical knowledge. Correct views without practical influence are only the surface of knowledge—the lifeless mass. It is not knowledge in itself—but knowledge under Divine Teaching—that works the main end. He is the wise man—and happy in his wisdom, who is thus “wise unto salvation. If Solomon with his mighty grasp of intellect could find no rest in earthly wisdom, who else can expect it?

Let the glowing stimulus be given to the pursuit of ‘that heavenly and never-perishing wisdom, which pours through the mind with singular delight, and, as a kind of honey, affects all its legitimate exercises with its own sweetness. This wisdom stands out in striking contrast to every “vain show. It is “life eternal” (John 17:3),—the source—not of grief and sorrow—but of everlasting joy: ‘To be wise without Christ is plain folly.

Alas! for that knowledge that shews the vanity, not the rest. A mercy indeed is it to be turned away from the empty shadow, and to lay hold of the solid substance. Here is unwavering repose. All is pure and heavenly. All is freely offered. Once having tasted the blessing—can we ever weary in the wondering delight? “With thee is the fountain of life, in thy light shall we see light.” (Ps. 36:9.)