CRITICAL NOTES.—
Ecclesiastes 2:3. I sought in mine heart.] The word has the meaning not of thinking or reflecting, but to prove or assay—to make a moral experiment.
Ecclesiastes 2:8. The peculiar treasure of Kings.] The treasure forced from vanquished heathen rulers, and the voluntary gifts of friendly rulers such as the Queen of Sheba. The delights of the Sons of Men. An obvious reference to Solomon’s excessive animal indulgence.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Ecclesiastes 2:3-11
THE WORTH OF THIS WORLD’S PLEASURES FAIRLY TESTED
The experiment to ascertain whether the pleasures of this life have any abiding value for man, was conducted, in this instance, with perfect fairness.
I. It was tried on a sufficient number and variety of cases. Solomon had ample opportunity of tasting every pleasure the age could afford. He did not, like one from some obscure retreat, despise those glories he could not share. He tried them all.
1. He tried coarse pleasures. “I sought in my heart to give myself unto wine.” The excessive indulgence of the lower appetites—such as the intoxication of the senses with wine—promises us a brief happiness. We forget the miseries and painful aspects of life, and enjoy a temporary elevation of soul. The feelings become intense, the mind seems half inspired, life appears as if lighted up with a sudden glare. The graces of intellect and feeling, and even of religious rapture, are imitated in the condition produced by wine. “Be not drunk with wine, but filled with the Spirit,” implies as much. The indulgence of animal instincts was also tried. “The delights of the children of men.” Solomon was a melancholy example of a great soul debased by a wild indulgence of animal passion.
2. He tried those pleasures which feed the desire of display. There is a feeling of pride in human nature which has a natural outlet in parade and show. We court admiration, and the distinction of being an object of envy. Solomon had great riches, tribute from foreign kings, numerous servants, houses, and gardens—all that could support splendour and magnificence. The homage paid to great estate and grandeur increases the outward happiness of this life. Men make wealth and display the standard of honour.
3. He tried those pleasures which minister to a sense of refinement. There are pleasures more exalted than the indulgence of our lower instincts—more worthy of the dignity of our nature. The royal sage employed himself in works of constructive skill—noble architecture, vineyards, gardens, pools of water, groves. He enjoyed the delights of music. Such pleasures engage some of the noblest powers of the mind, they lend a grace and elegance to life, they assuage the troubles of the heart, and they fill up the pauses of sensual pleasures which so soon tire the power of enjoyment. They are more congenial to our better nature. They take us beyond the mere things themselves, and are not unworthy to represent spiritual delights. They furnish a parable of Divine joys. Worldly refinement is a close imitation of religion. They yield but a temporary joy. “For my heart rejoiced in all my labour.” Misery can exist beneath them all, and as they vanish with life they cannot be our chief good. God permits some men to run through the entire scale of human happiness to show others that the best of this world cannot fill the soul.
II. It was tried under the Restraints and Control of Wisdom. “Yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom.” “Wisdom remained with me.” He did not rush headlong into sensual enjoyments, but tested them with calm reflection and composure. He did not allow himself to be blindly led by passion, but was under the guidance of a mind regulated by prudence.
1. Such a course is distinguished from that of the mere voluptuary. Such plunge into pleasure and do not allow the control of the higher faculties. Wisdom is left behind. The man is a slave to passion. Unless the mind retains its supremacy and dignity, our trial of wordly pleasure cannot even merit the poor name of an experiment.
2. Such a course may be expected to yield a hopeful result.
(1.) It saves the soul from utter debasement. When the voice of reason is hushed, and a man is abandoned entirely to sensuality, there is but little prospect that he will escape the snare.
(2.) Conscience is on the side of reason and right; and is effectual when reason is released from the control of passion.
(3.) A man is not condemned to hopeless slavery while his mind is free. He preserves an instrument which can help him to recover his liberty.
III. It was tried with an Honest Endeavour to discover what was the Chief Good of Man. “Till I might see what was good for the sons of men,” &c. It was not the love of pleasure for its own sake that prompted him. The experiment was made in all honesty to find out what, on the whole, was best for the sons of men. We must expect that like experiments will be made in such a world as this.
1. It is not always evident, at first, what is best. A life devoted to wisdom has superior advantages over one of pleasure, yet, for aught we know, the enjoyment of the world’s pleasure may be better for us than a cold and severe wisdom, which only serves to increase our pains and anxieties. The mystery and uncertainty of human things is some justification for making a trial of this kind
2. Practical wisdom can only be gained by experience. This requires repeated trials. We can only be said really to know that of human life which we have ascertained by trial. It is well when life’s solemn lessons are quickly learned, and we become truly wise before worldly pleasure completely injures our moral force, and claims us for her own.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Ecclesiastes 2:3. He who indulges in the coarse mirth excited by wine, with the hope that a superior wisdom will preserve him from moral danger, runs the risk of being shorn of his strength in the lap of luxury.
He who gives the reins to pleasure may never recover his command.
Human life is so short and uncertain that we should come to an early decision concerning our Chief Good.
How much use of wit and reason soever men may have in the pursuance of earthly delights, yet while they are seeking in their hearts to give themselves away to these things, they are but taking hold of folly. And though the foolish sinner does not look upon his way while he is pursuing his idols, yet when God awakes him, whether in wrath or mercy, he will see and be forced to say that he hath been doing nothing but taking hold on folly [Nisbet].
The original goes thus, “in the number of the days of their life,” as showing the fewness of man’s days, so that they may be numbered. For as the Poet speaketh, Pauperis est numerare pecus. It is a sign of a poor man to number his cattle; so it is a proof of the scantiness of man’s days that number doth so easily measure them [Jermin].
Ecclesiastes 2:4. In producing works of utility and adornment, man enjoys a pleasure beyond the value of the things themselves.
Some kind of activity is necessary for the happiness of those whose lot does not require them to toil for subsistence. No one can be happy in a life of soft enjoyment—passively receiving the gifts of pleasure. There must be some means of employing the active powers of the mind.
The power of constructing great works is part of the likeness of the Divine Nature. The beginning of all these things is laid in the thought of man’s mind. All the devices of human industry and skill have been developed from ideas. And what is creation, but the Divine thought taking form and expression in eternal things? It is God-like to possess the power to devise and produce great works.
For how much the magnificence is greater in the structure of houses, either in respect of their multitude or cost, by so much the shame is greater, that the soul is not adorned. Let that be built up carefully; let humility be the pavement of it, let hope be the roof of it, let faith be the pillars of it; on this side let justice be towards men, on that side devotion towards God. And let love, an excellent artificer, neatly join all these together, and then there will be a house for wisdom to dwell in [Jermin].
We may use our means of living to administer to our necessity, and the culture of our mind and taste; or to feed the desire of display and vain show.
A Greek Father says, that Solomon’s confession of the planting of vineyards contains a catalogue of his vain affections, that “Wine immoderately taken is the nourishment of intemperancy, the bane of youth, the reproach of old age, the shame of women, the prison of madness.”
Ecclesiastes 2:5. Man still finds his delight in what is but the degenerate imitation of Paradise. Buildings and palaces would soon cease to please. He must have the pleasures of the open air, the sweet refreshments of gardens.
Let those to whom God hath afforded these delights have in their gardens, as Joseph had, a sepulchre—that is, let them in their pleasures remember their death. And as Joesph’s sepulchre in his garden was made the sepulchre of Christ, so it were good also that such in their gardens—that is, in their delights—would think of the misery which He suffered for them [Jermin].
The church is the true garden of God, enclosed from the wilderness of the world, and tended with special care. All possible varieties are compelled to grow in the garden, so the church includes every variety of mind, temper, and disposition; affording special encouragements and means of spiritual growth for each. Yet God has some garden plants in the wilderness; the fruits of the Spirit may be brought forth outside the domain of Christendom.
Ecclesiastes 2:6. Large pools were necessary for watering the gardens and orchards. The Church of God needs her fountains near.
Nature, though free with her bountiful blessings, leaves much for man to do. Water is provided, but human contrivance is necessary to conduct it to every place where it is required. We have our part to do in preparing our souls to be proper receptacles of the plentiful grace of God.
But that from these pools of water, we may draw something that shall be wholesome for us; let us make our eyes pools of water, that so a sorrow for our sins may wash them away with the watering of it, and cleanse us from them by the current of amendment in the course of our life. Or else let us make pools of charity, therewith to water the decayed trees of misery; therewith to moisten the dry ground of want and necessity. Charity is Rehoboth, the well of breadth, a name given by Isaac to a well which his servants digged; for charity doth spread abroad her waters wheresoever is need of them [Jermin].
Let us make us pools by digging into the depths of heavenly knowledge. There is nothing better than this Divine fountain, by which the dryness and barrenness of our souls is made wet and moistened, by which virtues do spring up in us, so that even a grove of good desires and works doth sprout forth in our lives [Gregory Nyssenus].
Ecclesiastes 2:7. The vanity of man is fed by that display of grandeur which raises the admiration of others.
Servants born in the house would be endowed with natural fidelity. Men make use of natural laws to serve their own ambition.
It is not the lot of all to be attended by numerous trains of servants, but if we are the sons of the heavenly king, the angels wait upon us. The heirs of salvation have, even under the disadvantages of the present state, some signs of royal dignity.
In the heavenly household, the greatest, waits upon the least. Man is greatest, not when exacting, but when performing service.
Ecclesiastes 2:8. The love of gold and silver tends to burden the heart more than the love of large possessions in cattle, &c. A man is more likely to worship the image of wealth than wealth itself.
The homage paid to wealth is a strong temptation to indulge the illusion of superiority.
Gifts persuade even the gods, and gold is more potent with men than a thousand arguments [Plato].
Wealth honours wealth; income pays respect to income; but it is wont to cherish in its secret heart an unmeasured contempt for poverty. It is the possession of wealth, and of the social power which is conferred by wealth, which constitutes the title to honour. To believe that a man with £60 a year is just as much deserving of respect as a man with £6000, you must be seriously a Christian. A philosophical estimate of men and things is not really proof against the inroads of the sentiment which makes the possession of mere income the standard of honour [Liddon].
The most obvious danger which worldly possessions present to our spiritual welfare is, that they become practically a substitute in our hearts for that One Object to which our supreme devotion is due. They are present; God is unseen. They are means at hand of effecting what we want: whether God will hear our petitions for those wants is uncertain; or rather, I may say, certain in the negative. Thus they promise and are able to be gods to us, and such gods too as require no service, but, like dumb idols, exalt the worshipper, impressing him with a notion of his own power and security. Religious men are able to repress, nay extirpate, sinful desires; but as to wealth, they cannot easily rid themselves of a secret feeling that it gives them a footing to stand upon—an importance, a superiority; and in consequence they get attached to the world, lose sight of the duty of bearing the Cross, become dull and dim-sighted, and lose their delicacy and precision of touch, are numbed (so to say) in their fingers’ ends, as regards religious interests and prospects [J. H. Newman].
Music is a kind of language, and has a voice independent of the forms of speech. It has an universal eloquence, a power to withdraw even the dull and the sensual for awhile from their grosser existence. It is a luxury to feel strongly, and to allow the soul to be dissolved in harmony. But whatever exalts the feelings without leading to right practice inflicts moral injury.
We may understand “the delights of the sons of men” of music generally, great being the power which the delight of music hath upon men. Of which King Theodoric writing to Boetius in Cassiodore saith—“When she cometh from the secret of nature, as it were the Queen of the senses, adorned with her musical figures; other thoughts skip away, and she causeth all things to be cast out, that there may be a delight only of hearing her. She sweeteneth grief, mollifieth rage, mitigateth cruelty, quickeneth laziness, giveth rest to the watchful, maketh her chaste who hath been defiled with unclean love, and that which is a most blessed kind of curing, by most sweet pleasures driveth away the passions of the mind, and by the subjection of things that are insensible obtaineth command over the senses.” But though this be “the delight of the sons of men,” let the delight of the sons of God be the music and harmony of their lives unto God’s commandments [Jermin].
Ecclesiastes 2:9. Solomon compares his greatness as a worldly-wise man, not with private characters, but with official. He was great, yet it was only “more than they that were before him in Jerusalem,” not more than they that were in virtue and holiness before him. Worldly greatness is not to be compared with spiritual.
Men imagine that the greatness of their works and possessions is transferred to themselves, that their magnificence can be determined by measures of surface. The Rich Fool thought that the enlarging of his barns would make the foundations of his life surer and more lasting.
The most exalted human wisdom cannot save us from becoming a prey to vanity. We may by means of it conquer sensuality, and yet end in the worship of ourselves.
While the outward man revels in pleasure, the inward man may be yearning for a higher life.
There is some hope for a man who has made even a foolish experiment upon principles of reason. He who leaves wisdom behind him, when he plunges into worldly pleasures, destroys the bridge by which alone he can return.
Solomon could not have come to the conclusion that “all was vanity,” unless he discovered that there was something in himself which was not vanity—thus, “wisdom remained with him.” Hugh of S. Victor says, “He was able to speak that against vanity not vainly.”
So prone are men enjoying plenty of outward delights to lose even the exercise of common prudence and reason, and to give themselves up as beasts to the leading of their sensual appetites, that it is a mercy much to be marked and acknowledged for a man to have any measure of the exercise thereof continued in that case. For Solomon speaks of this as a remarkable thing, which hardly would be expected by many, that he having “all the delights of the sons of men,” being so great and increased more than all that had been before him, might yet truly say this, “Also my wisdom remaineth with me” [Nisbet].
Ecclesiastes 2:10. The heart is often led by the eye, the seat of moral power becomes subject to the senses.
The eye, the guardian of our safety, may be allured by a false light that “leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind,”—by false philosophies, pleasures, religions.
Man received the first wounds of sin through the eye. The very sentinel placed aloft by heaven to guard us must be defended by God’s especial grace.
Let us remember how unhappily their eyes were opened unto them that were in Paradise, which were enlightened so long as they had them shut unto sin. Where we read “the eye is the light of the body,” the Greek is, the lamp, the candle of the body: for as a lamp burneth very well, and giveth good light so long as it is shut up and kept close within some room; but if it be set in the open air, is soon blown out by the wind; so the eye, if it be kept shut from vanity by a watchful carefulness, then it giveth the best light to the body. But if it be wantonly and negligently opened, then the good light of it is soon put out [Jermin].
There is some earthly recompense for human labours; but, at best, man is never truly rewarded here for all his pains. A transitory joy is but a poor compensation to set over against the infinite sadness of life, and the terrible forebodings of the heart.
The eye, the most far-reaching of all our powers, cannot give us lasting joy. It may range freely over every delight, but the spirit of man will remain in bondage till it is delivered by the coming of the Holy Ghost.
Labour there was in the seeking of it, labour in the possession of it, and yet this is the All which man seeketh of all his labour. This is the portion which the Preacher saith he had; there being no sickness, no enemy, no other cross either in mind or body, at home or abroad, to deprive him of it. So that we have here under the law, the Prodigal under the Gospel, asking his portion of his father, which is divided to him, and spent by him in the far country of this world upon worldly delights [Jermin].
Ecclesiastes 2:11. “All the works.”
1. In collecting riches.
2. In increasing the magnificence of the State.
3. In multiplying the means of social enjoyment.
It is well that we should look upon the works we have wrought in the world, till we discover that, apart from God, they are labour, weariness; and pain upon every remembrance of them. To think upon our ways, to survey our position, is the first step towards obtaining our true good.
The pangs of spiritual famine—the want of God, may be felt by one whose lot it is to live in the midst of a profusion of this world’s plenty and pleasure.
Our works in the world often outlast our joy. The Royal Moralist did not look upon his joy, but upon his labours.
Vanity has two ingredients—hollowness and aimlessness. Without God, all things are unsubstantial; they have no solid and lasting worth. Human labour, when not inspired by the Divine idea, reaches no worthy goal. God had His witnesses for this truth in the old heathen world. Thus, in the poem of Lucretius, we read—“Therefore the race of men labours always fruitlessly, and in vain; and life is consumed in empty cares.”
The wisdom which is concerned with what is under the sun can only give us negative conclusions; can only say of true happiness—It is not here. Religion has a positive truth to set over against this—“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.”
That is vain which is empty, when there is a name, but not anything at all. A name of riches, but not the thing; a name of glory, but without the thing; a name of power, but the name only is to be found. Who is therefore so senseless as to seek after names which have not the things, and to follow after empty things which should be shunned [St. Chrysostom].
The Fortunate Islands, which anyone may talk of, are but mere dreams, not lying anywhere under the sun’s light [Jermin].