CRITICAL NOTES.—
Ecclesiastes 1:1. The Preacher.] The word properly signifies “The Assembler.” Solomon collected the people together for the purpose of addressing them as a public speaker. A difficulty has been felt in applying this term to him, because in Hebrew this word has a feminine form; but we may regard Solomon as an impersonation of Wisdom, the word for which in Hebrew is also feminine.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Ecclesiastes 1:1
THE NECESSARY QUALITIES OF THE TRUE PREACHER
I. He has the True Public Spirit. Solomon gave his invitation to all, as in Prov: “Unto you, O men, I call.” The words of the Sacred writer of Israel have a popular character, as distinguished from the writings of heathen nations, which were addressed only to minds capable of lofty speculation. The wisdom of the world despises and spurns away the ignorant. It is addressed to classes—the heritage of the favoured few. But, the true preacher is a public benefactor in the widest sense. He who seeks the highest and most lasting good for man is the genuine lover of the race. His benevolent designs are not circumscribed by sect, country, social position, or mental culture—they are wide as the wants of the soul, which are seen beneath all appearances and disguises.
1. This public spirit is opposed to all selfish ends. The true preacher does not seek wealth—his own glory—has no desire of display. His aim is to proclaim the only remedy for the world’s disease. He is lost in the supreme glory of his theme.
2. It is opposed to all lesser forms of benevolence. Solomon had acquired skill to increase the nation’s wealth, to adorn and beautify cities, palaces, etc. Yet he does not exhort men to attain this power, but rather to seek the Chief Good. The work of the true preacher promotes man’s temporal welfare, sharpens the spur of progress, spreads civilization, purifies and elevates literature. The collateral effects of Christianity are not to be despised. But the great end of the preacher is to convey lasting spiritual good. The good, of which he is the channel, has the stamp of immortality.
II. He has the impulse to utter the Great Verities of Religion. Solomon could not keep his knowledge of Divine truth and fervour of piety in the seclusion of his own mind and heart. He must let it forth for the good of all. The true preacher has an irresistible impulse to utter the message God has given him. Why?
1. Because he has true views of man—his position before God, and his destiny. He has his eye on the four last things. This gives him earnestness, and singleness of purpose.
2. Because he has a Divine call. No mere culture or training can fit a man to be a successful messenger of Divine truth. The true preacher is the creation of the grace of God. The Divine fire, hot within him, will be resplendent without. Every true preacher will be both a burning and a shining light.
3. Because the nature of his message must fill him with compassion, and this has the property of loving to spend itself. The messenger of mercy must catch the inspiration of true charity.
III. He has a Soul-History. Solomon had an eventful history of spiritual conflict with sin, sorrow, doubt, and disappointment. He had attained to peace through a terrible struggle. Woe to that man who has nothing but an outward history—no stirrings of an inner life. It may not be necessary for the true preacher to fight over again all the soul-battles of Solomon, but he must know what moral conflict is—the crisis of victory must have taken place in his life. Without such a history,
1. The symbols of Divine truth will be mere words, having no life or spirit.
2. His utterance of truth will be only professional.
3. He, at best, can only promote the religion of habit, taste, or culture, instead of true spiritual feeling.
IV. He has True Regal Power. Solomon was a Royal Preacher, and every preacher can be royal in his influence over souls. As mental power is superior to physical, so is spiritual to either. The men of literature are monarchs of the empire of mind. But the men who place spiritual principles deep in the heart of humanity have attained the greatest sovereignty beneath the Supreme Majesty. To gain a soul is to enhance the glory of our royal diadem. He who bears witness to the truth is a king. To possess Divine wisdom, and the power to utter it, invests a man with true kinghood. The Apostles still rule the Church by their words.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSE
Ecclesiastes 1:1. The methods God employs in the conveyance of His truth to man are not peculiar to religion. Men seek by spoken and written words to impress their thoughts on other minds. All who would affect public assemblies by speech must use the expedient of preaching. The great masters of knowledge, in every age, were, in their several ways, preachers.
Solomon was the inspired teacher of the people. His words of wisdom were not only uttered by the voice, but they were also made permanent in sacred literature, and so their influence is perpetual. But though the Christian preacher may not commit his words to the immortal custody of the press, they are engraven on human minds and hearts. That which is written on the soul lasts longer than inscriptions on brass or marble, than the still more enduring works of genius, or even than the Bible itself. The writing which God’s truth traces upon the spirit of man will outlast all the imperfect appliances of human learning. If a preacher is inspired by the Spirit, he can write books which will furnish the library of heaven.
Words become ennobled when they are used to convey spiritual ideas. The cross was once suggestive of disgrace and contempt; it now brings to our mind the dear remembrance of the deed of infinite love.
The common expressions of our daily life have deep spiritual significations. Hunger, thirst, truth, freedom, life, death—these words, as the preacher uses them, have meanings of sublime importance. The Holy Ghost can turn the common elements of human language into a celestial dialect. There is a better and a more enduring substance in language than the literature of the world can express.
The words of the true preacher.
1. Instruct.
2. Persuade.
3. Gain the affections.
4. Unite true souls here.
5. Prepare souls for the great assembly on high.
Solomon taught the people knowledge. Paul was “preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:31). The preaching that does not teach is worthless.
Talent, logic, learning, words, manner, voice, action, all are required for the perfection of the preacher: but “one thing is necessary,”—an intense perception and appreciation of the end for which he preaches, and that is, to be the minister of some definite spiritual good to those who hear him [J. H. Newman].
Words are the garments with which thoughts clothe themselves. The mind cannot rest in what is vague or diffused: it can only apprehend ideas which have a definite expression. This law of our mental constitution makes the superior revelation of the Gospel a necessity. God has given us an expression of Himself.
1. By the Incarnate Word. Thought itself is invisible. We cannot follow the silent excursions of another’s mind. But speech is thought enbodied. The Invisible God has been manifested forth in His Son—the Divine Word. Logos signifies in Greek, both the word which expresses the thought outwardly, and also the inward thought, or the reason itself. The Eternal Word reveals the Eternal Reason. Christ is the power of God, and the Wisdom of God.
2. By His works. These are the thoughts of God as manifested by material things. Physical science is but the intelligent reading of those ideas of God which have taken form and shape in the universe of matter. Here are the Divine thoughts on beauty, force, mechanism, and contrivance to compass special ends for the welfare of His great family. Nature is a volume whose meaning is ever unfolding, and enhancing our conceptions of the Infinite Mind. “The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.”
3. By the Scriptures. These are the thoughts of God concerning us men and our salvation. They reveal
(1.) His thoughts on our natural condition.
(2.) His thoughts on the means of our recovery.
(3.) His thoughts on the conditions of our welfare in the great future.
The Church can only be maintained by keeping spiritual thought alive by means of fitting words. The disciples were commanded to “teach all nations.”
A king does not lower his dignity by undertaking the office of a preacher. That sacred calling is honourable, because it is occupied with what is of infinite value and importance—the soul of man. The words of secular speakers are only concerned with the fleeting things of time, but the words of the preacher are concerned with man’s interest beyond the grave.
The statesman deals with the concerns of empires; but empires, though they flourish through a life of centuries, yet ultimately share in the mortality of their founders. The advocate vindicates the claims of individuals whose earthly existence is still more transient; but to the preacher alone is appropriated the assertion of a subject whose extent is infinite, whose duration is eternal. To him alone it is given to consider man in the one aspect in which he is unchangeably sublime. With every other view of his nature the low and the ludicrous may mingle; for in every other view he is a compound of the wondrous and the worthless; but in the contemplation of a being whose birth is the first hour of an unending existence, no artifice can weaken the impression of awful admiration which is the great element of sublimity [Archer Butler].
The Church, by the voice of her teachers, possesses a power to gather men together, and to unite them by the surest bonds. The society thus held together by the ties of a common heritage of truth, experience, and hope, has no elements of decay. Outside the Church, we find disunion and desolation. “We have turned every one to his own way.” Men can never be truly united into one family until they bear the same gracious and loving relations to our Heavenly Father. Success in preaching serves to expand the Parental Empire of God.
Christ is the true Solomon—the true collector of assemblies. He said to Jerusalem, “How often would I have gathered thee!” He will, in the end, collect all His people into one great assembly, and unfold to them the riches of His mind. He has yet many things to say unto us, but we cannot bear them now.
Human language cannot fully reveal the riches of infinite truth. The substance of Divine truth in the Bible is superior to the forms of language by which it is conveyed. The preacher’s best words fall short of the sublime verities of which they are the vehicle.
The garment of man’s speech must be narrower than the body of God’s truth, which by one means or another has to be clothed with it [Trench].
The preacher should be careful in the choice of words, for their right use and ordering is not merely an accomplishment, but is bound up with the interests of truth itself.
The mixture of those things by speech, which by nature are divided, is the mother of all error [Hooker].
The preacher must avoid the danger of accepting the words of religion instead of the things which they represent. There is behind the words a life-giving Spirit, without which they are vain. The advice of Bacon is to the point: ipsis consuescere rebus—to accustom ourselves to the things themselves.
The preacher’s words are a debt due to the Church.
The sun does not monopolize its beams, and engross its light; but scatters them abroad, gilds the whole world with them. It shines more for others than itself; it is a public light. Look on a fountain; it does not bind its streams, seal up itself, and enclose its waters, but spends itself with a continual bubbling forth. It streams forth in a fluent, liberal, and communicative manner; it is a public spring [Culverwell].